LESSONS OF FAITH AND LIFE. 

DISCOURSES 



E. H. CHAPIN. 




( 1 

NEW YORK : 
JAMES MILLER, PUBLISHER, 

647 Broadway. 
1877. 

// 





COPYRIGHTED 

By JAMES MILLER. 
1877. 



Stereotyped and printed by 
Randy Avery, and Company, 
Iiy Franklin Street, 
Boston. 



TO 

THE CONGREGATION 

WORSHIPPING IN 

THE CHURCH OF THE DIVINE PATERNITY, 

NEW YORK, 

2Tfj f 0 Uolume of Stacourgeg 

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED, 
BY THEIR PASTOR, 

E. H. CHAPIN. 



PREFACE. 



This volume hardly requires a preface. It consists of 
a few discourses selected from many that I have preached 
in this city during my ministry here of almost thirty 
3'ears. They have been copied for the press from manu- 
scripts in which some of the passages were fully written 
out, while in other instances I have endeavored to recover 
the substance of my remarks from fragmentary notes. 
These discourses have been arranged without regard to 
the relation of subjects. I need not add that they proba- 
bly contain nothing new ; but I hope the}' may be found 
to express needed although familiar truth. They are 
simply what they profess to be,- — " Lessons of Faith 
and Life." They are now committed to those, who, 
having heard them, may desire to receive them again in 
this form, and to any who may think fit to read them ; 
and I pray that God will make them useful. 

E. H. Chapin. 

New York, Dec. S, 1876. 

IS 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Transfiguring Look 9 

The Visible and the Invisible 25 

The Earnest Touch 43 

Ruth 58 

Christ Walking on the Sea 75 

Conformation and Transformation 92 

John and Herod 112 

The Fallacy of Evil 131 

The Unsatisfied Eye 150 

The Christian Revelation 166 

Samson 182 

The Eternity of God 200 



1 



DISCOUESES, 



I. 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



11 And as he prayed the fashion of his countenance was altered." 
— Luke ix. 29. 



HATEVER view we may adopt concerning the 



T I nature of Jesus, and however distinctly we may 
recognize the supernatural elements involved with 
his earthly life, it is hardly necessary to affirm that 
the incidents of his personal history, as recorded in 
the Evangelists, had a human side. They indicate 
some possibility of human experience. It is thus 
with the incident described in the text. It was, in a 
special sense, a transfiguration. We may say that it 
involved a condition never expressed in any merely 
human life. But as in Jesus we behold the highest 
ideal of humanity, so in this act of transfiguration 
— though in a more glorious and exalted way — he 
represents and illustrates something which takes 
place in man, — in every man, whenever he assumes 




9 



10 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



the highest posture of his nature, and gives expres- 
sion to the deepest convictions of the human soul. 
As Jesus prayed there on the mount, 44 the fashion 
of his countenance was altered." And so we may 
say that, as man prays, — or, in other words, as in any 
posture man comes in contact with the great realities 
of religion and of the soul, and expresses his relation 
to these, — the fashion of his countenance alters, the 
look of humanity is transfigured. And this is the 
thought that I propose to illustrate in the present 
discourse. 

Perhaps there is no test so ready and so sure of 
what is in a man, either of fixed character or tran- 
sient sentiment, as his own face. It is curious to see 
how hidden and fleeting thoughts will cast reflections 
of themselves upon this wondrous mirror. To some 
extent this tendency may be controlled by art. as 
it is said to have been in the case of Xapoleon. But 
it is likely that there will be some aspect or motion 
— some uncontrollable flicker of the eye — which 
will open a chink into the secret cabinet of the heart. 
So you may trace the under-current of passion rip- 
pling in the cheek of courtesy, and detect the lewd 
nature peering through unsuspected masks. How 
plainly will a mean motive skulk in the front of 
affected carelessness, while an instinctive counsel 
within us challenges a man's words by his looks. 
On the other hand, consider how marvellously people 
are transfigured by high and holy sentiments. You 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



11 



hardly recognize the homely features, or the clumsy 
shape, when an eloquent thought, or a great truth, 
shoots like an aurora into the countenance, and sets 
its star-light in the eyes. The puny form dilates 
with a heroic purpose, and the plain and even coarse 
face, lit up with benevolence as it bends over the 
bed of sickness and pain, becomes beautiful as an 
angel's. 

But if the fashion of a- man's countenance is thus 
flexible to the transient currents of his inner life, it 
receives a more permanent stamp from his substantial 
character. The faces of men may be read like books, 
and present symbolic title-pages of their essential 
life. That in which a man lives, and for which he 
hankers, — the plane and standard of his being, — 
appears in unmistakable lineaments. As his image 
maybe transferred to clay or marble, so his counte- 
nance is only a flesh-and-blood cast of his spirit. 
Who cannot discern the sensualist's ideal in that ex- 
pression of exuberant desire ? Avarice, miserliness, 
hard, grinding requisition, are they not all projected 
in that countenance, as it were not of skin and bone, 
but of parchment and bullion ? And then how the 
heart of love swims to the surface, and the overflow 
of a sweet generosity glorifies the aspect ! You may 
be able to suspect from many a professor's face when 
he has more creed than religion, as you can also see 
whose soul walks higher than condemning dogmas, 
among great charities and holy thoughts. 



12 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



And now, if men are thus moulded, or transfigured, 
by their inmost ideals, it is a matter of interest for 
- us to consider the expression of humanity at large 
under the inspiration of sincere religious faith. I 
say at once, then, that it is the highest expression of 
humanity. I affirm that there is no mode of action, 
no posture of being, so grand, so hopeful, so preg- 
nant with suggestion, as that of man praying, — 
one in whom culminates the fullest expression of 
Christian belief and service. It is a transfiguring 
look, which lifts him above all sin and frailty and 
dust and shadow, and exhibits him as a child of 
God and an heir of immortality. Higher than any 
mere intellectual achievement is this uplifting and 
surrender of the soul. Newton grasping the firma- 
ment in his thought is not so sublime a spectacle as 
Newton when he kneels and adores. And as to the 
most insignificant or miserable man, — the beggar, 
and the penitent thief, and the little child, and the 
soldier trampled in the bloody mire of the battle- 
field, and the unconsidered unit clinging like a bar- 
nacle to the hull of civilization, and the daughter of 
shame withering in the street, — as to each and all, 
I say that when they pray the fashion of their coun- 
tenance is altered, the husk of their mortality cleaves 
open, and they assume an expression of indescriba- 
ble dignity. 

And as with individual instances, so with the col- 
lective humanity. Its supreme expression is in the 



THE TBAXS FIGURING LOOK. 



13 



act of faith and worship. Upon this earth there is 
no sight so suggestive and inspiring as the spectacle 
of a congregation gathered, as we have gathered 
here to-day, in acknowledgment of an Infinite 
Power, of a Goodness that is over all, in the expres- 
sion of dependence upon a Supreme Helper, in a 
sense of unseen and eternal realities. Wherever 
men this day assume the posture of religious trust 
and reverence, looking upward to the Invisible, — in 
the simple meeting-house, where the silver hairs of 
village saints, and the toil-worn hands of husband- 
men, and the patient look of matrons, and the faces 
of little children blend in a sweet and solemn ser- 
vice, and groups, passing homeward through ranks 
of tombstones, read their lines of immortal hope 
gleaming through the grass, and look calmly on the 
places where they shall sleep in " the country church- 
yard;' 5 and in cities, where congregations sit with- 
out utterance, waiting the summons of the Spirit, 
or where with much ceremony litanies are chanted 
and censers swung, and the organ's divine thunder 
rolls through a thousand hearts, — wherever to-day 
humanity heaves with the great ground-swell of re- 
ligion, and all outward distinctions dissolve in the 
light of spiritual relations, — I say that there this 
humanity is transfigured : it is lifted above its sins 
and miseries and frailty, and ail that gives occasion 
for sceptical distrust. For as man prays — as his 
nature assumes its highest expression — the shadows 



14 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



of his mortality disappear, and the fashion of his 

countenance is altered. 

But we may go farther than this. Even in 
heathen lands, even in shapes of terror and of folly, 
we recognize the working of an element in man that 
exalts him far above the beast of the field, and 
suggests his relationship .to things that can never 
die. For what is this perverted sentiment, grossly 
perverted, working out in such deplorable results? 
what is this sentiment that has such perpetuity and 
power ? What is it, if not an instinct of our nature 
that has groaned and writhed under a sense of the 
Invisible, — that has built rock temples, and carved 
hideous gods, and impelled men to cut the tenderest 
chords of nature, to lacerate themselves, to mutilate 
themselves, to cast themselves into the flood and the 
fire, and that has darkened the earth and the sky 
and the heart of man with drifting shapes of super- 
stition? Why. I say that this power, from the 
lowest point of its scale to the highest, from the 
African grovelling before his shapeless idol, up to 
Luther discerning through ranks of priests and 
kings the presence of his God, up to Paul counting 
all things as loss for the sake of Christ, — I say that 
this power transfigures man. and forbids those low 
conclusions to which sometimes theoretically, and 
much more often practically, we consent. 

Yes, for this religious sentiment, thus fearfully 
perverted, I claim a legitimate function. It must 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



15 



have a normal office, or it could not be a perverted 
sentiment. It cannot be a factitious element : it has 
not been superinduced upon our nature. I claim 
that it is an authentic instinct and function of the 
soul. 

But if this sentiment of religion, this sense of the 
Invisible, is legitimate, then it must have reference 
to real objects; else it is exceptional among all 
other functions of our nature. As we have no 
faculties without a purpose, without corresponding 
objects, as for the eye and the hand there are 
external things to be seen and touched, so for this 
religious organ, just as veritable as the hand or the 
eye, there exist external realities to which it refers. 
For one thing, there is a God to be sought and 
loved and adored : and so this familiar act of a man 
praying transfigures him from a material puppet into 
an immortal soul ; from mere kinship with the brute, 
into a child of the infinite Father. I ask, then, in 
all our speculations, have we duly considered what 
this act of prayer, or any other posture of religious 
faith, really means? Have we considered what it 
demonstrates, and also what it contradicts ? 

Even at the risk of some repetition, let me specify 
that which has now been generally suggested. 

I. I observe, then, in the first place, that the very 
attitude of religious faith contradicts sceptical theo- 
ries of human nature. In trying to estimate the worth 
and the purpose of any being, it seems reasonable 



16 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



that we should adopt for our standard the highest 
manifestations of that being. As an illustration of my 
meaning, I remark that we estimate any individual 
man, not by what he may be doing at any specified 
time, not by the weakness or failure of some particu- 
lar occasion, but by what he has done in his highest 
moods, what he is capable of doing at his best We 
do not expect that Demosthenes will always give us 
an " Oration for the Crown," that Shakspeare will 
always write a " Hamlet," or Tennyson an " In Me- 
moriam." But surely it is by these productions, and 
not their poorest, that we rate such men. We meas- 
ure their calibre by their broadest circle of achieve- 
ment, and stamp the recognition of genius upon that 
which they have done, and can do, in the full swell 
of their powers. Now apply this illustration to 
classes of being. Concerning the brute we com- 
monly say, that, in his highest manifestations, he 
shows no capacity for any state beyond this earth. 
In his career there is no progress, at least his achieve- 
ment betrays no illimitable faculty, his eyes drink in 
no great depths of space, and kindle with no specula- 
tion. With all his sagacity and tractability he is, 
nevertheless, brutal. But it is not so with man. 
Strike out of the question, so far as the present dis- 
cussion is concerned, all the splendid achievements 
of the human intellect, admit that the mind of Plato 
or La Place is of the same sort as the mind of the 
mastiff or the elephant, and that, therefore, they are 



THE TRANSFIGUEING LOOK. 



17 



involved in a common destiny, still, in man there 
is something that is not in the animal, something 
that does not run on the same plane with his instinct, 
or, if you will call it so, his intellect; and that 
something is this religious sentiment, this transfig- 
uring element, which flows upward towards God, and 
breaks forth in the clear-shining of faith, and mounts 
in prayer. Even if it be found that this distinction 
between man and the brute does not exist, and that 
in the animal also there are germs of religious senti- 
ment, this would not balk the inference. It would 
only enlarge the possibilities of the brute. 

I maintain that we should estimate the signifi- 
cance of man by that in him which is highest. Is this 
being, then, who aspires to eternal things, a mere clod 
of earth ? Is he who conceives and feels after God 
only a form of matter? We are not to illustrate 
his capacity by the grossest and meanest aspects of 
humanity. It may be difficult to argue the spiritual 
dignity and the immortal destiny of mankind, if we 
select our tests anywhere and everywhere. It is 
hard, indeed, to kindle high hopes for the race, if 
you turn the light upon the face of the degraded 
savage, or the more degraded drunkard. We may 
rake the kennels of society, and rip up the swarms 
of filth and ferocity that go by the name of " men." 
We may take the idiot, the debauchee, the fop, the 
accomplished scoundrel, — all head and no principle, 
nothing but cold brain-light, down to the empty 



18 



THE TEANSFIGURING LOOK. 



socket of his heart; we may take a libertine, a 
tempter of his brother's soul, a corrupt politician, 
a thousand disheartening forms of humanity that 
pass by us every day ; nay, we may take the weak- 
ness and the sins even of good men, and upon all 
this we may erect a formidable superstructure of 
scepticism, and scoff at the notion of man's religious 
nature and his immortal destiny. But this is not 
the standard. Your scepticism does not comprehend 
all the tests. As in the case of the individual, so in 
regard to mankind at large, we must judge not by 
the lowest, but by the highest. There are all these 
disheartening phases of humanity ; but here, also, are 
these glorious instances. There are fools and knaves 
and tyrants and sensualists ; there are such as Cali- 
gula and Benedict Arnold and George IV. : but 
here, also, are Pauls and Fenelons and Florence 
Nightingales ; here are men and women writing a 
Christian martyrology in letters of blood and fire on 
the walls of amphitheatres; here are Latimers and 
Ridleys holding unblenching hands in the flame ; 
here are Pilgrims clasping Bibles to their breasts as 
they sail over stormy seas. Nay, let us get away 
from these scenic instances of history, here, right 
around you, are poor widows in bare garrets, kneel- 
ing, with God-seeing eyes ; here are oppressed and 
suffering men clinging to their simple belief in an 
infinite Helper, and feeling the consolation of Jesus 
breathing upon their sorrow ; here are poor brethren 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



19 



of ours, pressed by grievous temptations, lifting up 
their souls to Him who can make them strong in 
their moral conflict, and with swift strokes of sup- 
plication cleaving down help from the Almighty, 
Here is a man called to lie down and die, leaving a 
sick wife, leaving little helpless children ; feeling the 
mortal terror creeping inward to his heart, as the 
mortal agony creeps over his flesh ; but still looking 
up to the Father, laying hold of immortality, and in 
that one touch of faith making the coarse sheet that 
soon is to be his shroud more glorious with heaven's 
light than the hearse of Napoleon, rumbling through 
the streets of Paris and blossoming with a hundred 
victories. In such, in a thousand ways, here is the 
spectacle of man praying, — man summoning faith 
and devotion, and taking hold of unconquerable 
strength, lifted into unfading light; and, I ask, what 
do you make of this ? I maintain that thus estimat- 
ing humanity by its highest, not by its lowest atti- 
tudes, this weak, sinning, dying creature refutes all 
sceptical conclusions, and the fashion of its counte- 
nance is altered. 

II. I proceed to observe, in the next place, that in 
this expression of our nature we find a refutation of 
any extreme claim of action as opposed to worship, 
and also of science as setting itself in the place 
of religion. I touch the point of suggestion here, 
by asking why we have come together in this place 
to-day? Is it not in a persuasion that man must 



20 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



pray as well as work, — that he cannot depend merely 
upon his own resources, but must look up for Infi- 
nite help ? But are there not those who say that all 
forms of worship are obsolete ; that prayer is a super- 
stition fit only for the ignorant and weak, and that, 
after all, the only true prayer is work ; that true man- 
liness depends upon itself, and does not look away 
for help ? Now, in this assumption doubtless there 
is some truth. It hits some points of positifte error. 
It shows the impracticability of absolute fatalism, 
which leaves no room for human effort. It justly 
rebukes reliance upon mere forms of devotion with- 
out corresponding action. But, on the other hand, 
it overlooks the irrepressible instinct of prayer. It 
does not allow for the fact that man needs inspiration 
for his work, and that the individual advances and 
the race advances by ideals as well as by endeavors. 
The area of human vision is a condition of its power, 
and the strongest men the world has ever known are 
men who have risen from their knees to their feet. 
Indeed, if we shut out those realities which come into 
the horizon of prayer, the aspect of man's work upon 
the earth, of his efforts and struggles, is sad and 
doubtful. But by that revelation which he discerns 
in communion with God and unseen things, his hopes 
are confirmed, his trials are interpreted, his aspirations 
and his labors become significant, and the fashion of 
his countenance is altered. I have sometimes looked 
out upon the sea, stretching in one sweep of mystery 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



21 



far around, and without a boundary save the horizon, 
But, in all its aspects of grandeur and of beauty, to 
me nothing appears so suggestive as the sight of the 
vessels moving upon it, and, as they go, catching the 
glory of sunlight upon their sails. For so, I think, 
is the world itself, — a great deep of beauty and fear- 
fulness and mystery, shut in by an irresolvable hori- 
zon. And we should have far less hope for the 
moving hulks of our endeavor, — for this great ship 
of human interests, — were it not for the glory 
reflected from beyond and above, were it not for 
that open vista through which streams sunlight upon 
the sails. 

Action, then, cannot occupy the place of prayer. 
As the very motive power of our action, we need the 
inspiration and the vision which are revealed to 
faith. 

Nor can science be substituted for religion. The 
soul of man requires a light that we cannot find 
through the telescope, or at the end of the galvanic 
wire. It cannot rest or be satisfied with the mere 
discernment of natural laws. It cannot steer through 
the mystery of life with no other chart than the 
physical constitution of man. It needs a heavenly 
Father and a redeeming Christ. For religion is not a 
mere fancy or tradition. We may declare it obsolete, 
but it cannot be uprooted from human nature. In 
short, man needs the gospel. Here stands Jesus, 
occupying a place which no other has filled or can 



22 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



fill. Christ the revealer, Christ the glorified, Christ 
the transfigured, represents something without our- 
selves and above ourselves. He presents a point of 
reconciliation between the human and the divine, 
that no one else — no Plato, no Socrates, no oracle 
of scientific truth, no modern type of philanthropy 
— can give. In the light which streams upon us from 
the personality of Jesus the fashion of man's coun- 
tenance is altered. 

III. In closing, let me say that the fact which we 
have been considering, not only refutes false theoreti- 
cal, but unworthy practical, conclusions. The reali- 
ties which are assumed in this posture of faith and 
worship — the realities to which the spirit of man 
ascends, and with which it holds communion — 
rebuke all low and selfish and indifferent ways of 
living. And, after all, this is the most imminent 
danger, not that we shall deliberately form atheis- 
tic opinions, but that we shall abide in atheistic con- 
clusions. Opinions are the result of reasoning, and 
are amenable to the force of reason ; but the fascina- 
tions of sense, the pressure of visible and tangible 
things, more than intellectual disbelief, confirm men 
in an apathetic worldliness that can be broken only 
by touching the springs of spiritual consciousness, 
and rousing the forces of the will. At least, it is 
desirable that we should spring a bridge from our 
thoughts to our actions. Thinking as many, perhaps 
as most of us do, giving at least a passive assent to 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



23 



the reality of spiritual things, do we still live as 
though these things were not ? On the other hand, 
living as many do, I urge them to think back to the 
premises that justify such living. Construct, in 
theory, a universe that will justify profaneness or 
licentiousness, meanness and fraud, lack of principle 
and lack of love. How awful the system of things 
in which such lives would be logical conclusions! 
A universe in which there are no foundations of 
"eternal and immutable morality," no source for 
divine light like that which shone upon Jesus and 
from Jesus on the mount of transfiguration ! And 
we only phantoms of a day, groping among the 
tombstones of elder generations, re-animating their 
forsaken vanities, and with our measure of life- 
breath blowing out their collapsed and withered 
sins ! Living as many do, I repeat, think back to 
such a system as this, and thus live logically. 

But if we are children of God and heirs of immor- 
tality, what then should be the scope and standard 
of our lives ? Oh, my brethren ! if there is a world 
from which a supernatural splendor fell upon the 
face of the praying Jesus, — if there was such a 
Jesus, revealing such things to men, — - if these 
things are real, — it is not merely the fashion of 
man's countenance that alters, but the entire fashion 
of human life ! Then, not those things concerning 
which men think and act as though they really made 
up the substance of our being, but those we seek for 



24 



THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK. 



and cling to in solemn moments, in our best hours 
and in our last, — these are the supreme, the eternal 
fashion, all else being uncertain and perishable. 

Moreover, these consecrate all good and true things, 
even in our common lot and work. The light from 
above, the light from within, by which the fashion 
of man's countenance is altered, shines in both direc- 
tions. It guides us downward from the mountain- 
height of meditation and prayer, even as Jesus went 
down to work and duty. And this light also shines 
upward, disclosing those spiritual realities with which 
our essential being is implicated. I ask again, If 
that light be real, what is the logical, the simple, the 
practical conclusion ? Why, that we awake, and live 
in that transfiguring revelation. 



II. 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 

"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things 
which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but 
the things which are not seen are eternal." — 2 Cor. iv. 18. 

THESE words form a part of that grand passage of 
consolation which the Apostle Paul mingles with 
a recital of his sufferings for the gospel's sake. In 
doing the work to which he was called, he had pur- 
sued a career of peril and persecution. But the 
dangers which dashed around him only exposed the 
rocky solidity of his faith; the sacrifices which lay 
in his way proved the integrity of his purpose. He 
tells us that he was "troubled on every side, yet 
not distressed;" " perplexed, but not in despair; per- 
secuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not de- 
stroyed." He was able to call his heaviest trial a 
" light affliction," and saw how the transient event 
of the hour was working out for him "a far more 
exceeding and eternal weight of glory," 

In the words before us the apostle makes known 
the source of all this strength. He was able thus to 
do and endure, because he recognized those eternal 

25 



26 THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 

realities upon which all present conditions are based, 
or into which all present conditions subside. Why 
should he not be confident ? Why should he not be 
victorious ? Why should he fear stripes and impris- 
onment, and principalities and powers ? Why should 
he despair, or feel forsaken, when he was so sure that 
" the things which are seen are temporal, but the 
tilings which are not seen are eternal " ? 

The Second Epistle of Paul to the church of Cor- 
inth is the most personal, the most pregnant with his 
own peculiar thoughts and feelings, of all those 
remarkable letters that bear his name. In the 
course of this epistle he tells us of his joys and sor- 
rows, his anxieties and consolations. In his rela- 
tions to this particular church there had been much 
to excite these solicitudes, much to awaken his 
thankfulness and trust. But from these personal 
and temporary conditions emerges the truth which is 
permanent and universal. By the very intensity of 
his own private emotions the apostle mounts up into 
the realm of everlasting light and peace, where all 
earthly troubles melt away, and all the measure- 
ments of time dwindle to nothing. And thus Paul's 
experience of trial and suffering, which in one form 
or another come to all the children of men, leads 
to that margin of help and rest which is accessible to 
all. 

" For the things which are seen are temporal ; but 
the things which are not seen are eternal." This was 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 27 

the truth which inspired and consoled the apostle 
Paul, and it may inspire you and me and every 
man. This truth, therefore, I now propose to con- 
sider : — 

I. As a standard of power. 
II. Of knowledge. 
III. Of life. 

I. I remark, then, that the truth proclaimed in the 
passage before us indicates the standard of true 
power. And, first of ail, I say that it is an immeas- 
urably practical truth. It might be supposed that 
this steadfast regard to things invisible would disturb 
the conditions and depreciate the claims of our ordi- 
nary life. But it is not so. On the contrary, this 
spiritual discernment, throwing all things into true 
relations, gives to each thing its real value. For 
instance, the man who habitually contemplates these 
permanent realities is delivered from any sceptical 
mood. The importance of all life, the inherent 
greatness of being, is to him made apparent. He 
cannot say concerning this thing, or that thing, 
that it is " all vanity ; " for however slight it may be 
in itself, however transient in its operation, in one 
form or another it is the instrument or occasion 
of spiritual action. It expresses spiritual laws. He 
whose vision is limited to that which is seen, may 
easily fall into doubt and disparagement. To him, 
things may seem to have no purpose. He sees them 



28 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 



growing and decaying, appearing and vanishing, in 
a wearisome monotony of change. Let a man, for the 
time being, suppose himself to be utterly deprived 
of the vision of faith. In other words, let him sup- 
pose himself to be living only in the light of that 
which he sees. Take the great procession of human 
life ; take that fitting representation of it which every 
day passes through yonder street, perpetually flow- 
ing, and, as it flows, bearing every mortal aspect from 
youth to age, from the mystery of birth to the mys- 
tery of death. Each particle in that mighty stream 
cherishes some purpose, aims at some end. Never- 
theless, estimating all by the limits of time and sense, 
that purpose is brief, and that end is vain. And to 
what purpose, to what end, the great whole which 
composes this ceaseless river of humanity? To 
what purpose the successive generations that have 
rolled over the globe from the beginning until now, 
each characterized, perhaps, by some special form of 
achievement, each rising or sinking in the scale of 
civilization, each bequeathing something to the gen- 
erations following? But why talk of generations? 
It is the individual only that is conscious of life, not 
any corporate humanity abstracted from individuals ; 
and to each who has thus lived, and achieved, and 
suffered, to what purpose is it all ? 

Yes, it is the feeling of transitoriness, of limitation 
and perpetual change, that begets a scepticism which 
paralyzes effort, which finds no motive for putting 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 29 

forth practical power, and writes " vanity " upon all 
things. But let this veil of time and sense be lifted ; 
let the spiritual realities with which this procession of 
humanity is mingled be revealed ; let each life in its 
individuality, and all lives as one great whole, be 
thrown into connection with the purposes of spiritual 
being, — and at once there is inspiration for our effort. 
" The things which are seen are temporal ; " and, if the 
existence of man is involved with these alone, what 
object is there in lofty and self-sacrificing work? 
But encouragement for such endeavor is at once made 
manifest when we regard this lot of ours as involved 
with "the things which are not seen;" for "the 
things which are not seen are eternal." 

Nor is the man who looks at " the things which are 
not seen" to be regarded as visio nary, while he whose 
eyes are fixed upon " the things which are seen " is to 
be reckoned as the man of solid and practical sense. 
Quite otherwise. That man is not visionary who 
discerns things as they are, but he who lives in the 
illusion of a false or partial vision. And, I ask, 
whose vision is false, whose vision is partial, if not 
that of the man who discerns only "the things which 
are seen"? Do we call those men fanatics who be- 
lieve in higher realities than any of this earth, and 
who measure things in the light of those realities? 
As well might we call those "fanatics " who work in 
the light of the sun, rather than those who live in 
narrow caverns, and who, assuming their limited arena 



30 THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 



to be the scope of the universe, take shadows for 
substance, and grope in the dimness of perpetual 
twilight. He is not a fanatic who takes the broadest 
compass of being for the standard of things ; but he 
is a fanatic who lives in the delusion of the senses, 
and the narrowness of his own conceit. Yes, there 
are fanatics of the senses, visionary worldlings, 
men who cling to the mere surface of things, who 
sacrifice life and the highest good of life for some 
object that perishes as they grasp it ; who with a bit 
of coin hide all heaven from their own eyes, and who 
bury their souls in the limitations of the flesh as pro- 
foundly as any monk of La Trappe ever buried his 
body within stone walls. Even where there exists 
what is more popularly called " fanaticism," or, as we 
may term it, an excessive spirituality, a straining 
of the vision beyond that which is real into the re- 
gions of mystery and fancy, what, after all, is this 
but an inverted worldliness, the measuring of hid- 
den things by sensuous standards, a conceit of 
human limitations distorting the Illimitable ? A very 
different thing is this from that solemn apprehension 
of spiritual realities which men like Paul have enter- 
tained, and which led them to set every thing at 
its right value, and to see every thing in its right 
place. The most convincing testimony is that of 
fact. And, as the precise fact in the case, we know 
that such men have not been visionaries, but have 
wrought the great practical work of the world. They 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 31 

have been men of toil and endurance, and have ex- 
erted those mighty forces which have changed the 
face of empires, and thrilled the heart of ages. Read 
the record in which, with a proper humility and 
yet for a proper purpose, the apostle, in this Second 
Epistle to the Corinthians, recounts his labors, his 
sacrifices, and his sufferings, a record of simple 
fact, a record of the achievements of one whose 
influence has gone abroad in the earth to immeas- « 
urable results, — read this, and then remember that 
the man who thus wrought and endured looked to 
" the things which are not seen," and was able thus 
to do and to bear, because he looked to 44 the things 
which are unseen." 

We make a great mistake, if, by 44 practical men," 
we designate only those who live upon a level with 
concrete realities, and hold by immediate facts; 
while, on the other hand, we regard those who look 
to an ideal, and strive to make it real, as visionaries. 
Thus, our 44 practical men" are the dollar-and-cent 
men, who rate all issues by the price-current, who 
balance trade against truth, and who cling to the 
most palpable abominations for fear that, by ripping 
them up, they would disturb the economy of worldly 
interest. Such as these would have kept the world 
anchored two thousand years back. Their vocation 
is with 44 the things which are seen." But always it 
is that which is not seen that leads men forward, and 
through their action moves the world. It was some- 



32 THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 



thing not yet seen for which Russell suffered, and 
Hampden fell. Things not seen hovered above the 
Pilgrims' stormy passage, and lit up the winter land- 
scape around the Continentalers' tents. Something 
not seen drew Columbus onward, and made Luther 
say, " Here stand I : I cannot otherwise. God help 
me!" Things not seen fired the apostle's heart, and 
bade him challenge the corruption of Corinth, and 
the pride of Athens. Judge ye, then, whether the 
visionary men, the impracticable men, have been those 
who have looked beyond things immediate and appa- 
rent, or those who have regarded onty things imme- 
diate and apparent. Of course there is a fitness 
of conditions, and one should be reasonably assured 
that the end he seeks is a reality in the world of 
truth, and not a conceit of his own imagination. 
But I affirm that those, who, with clear vision, have 
looked to " the things which are not seen," of all men 
have been the least entitled to the name of " vision- 
aries," and have of all men wielded the elements of 
practical power. 

And I might proceed to show that all the highest 
kinds of power are unseen. In the material world, 
the things we see, even " the rock-ribbed and ancient 
hills," are only phenomena projected by energies 
which we do not see. Science finds it not difficult 
to trace back this planetary array of worlds to sheets 
of vapor, thinly spread out in space, and thus touches 
the threshold of the fact that " the things which are 



THE VISIBLE AXD THE INVISIBLE. 



33 



seen were not made of things which do appear.'' 
The corn and grape, out of what have they grown ? 
Where is the mystery that was buried in the seed, 
and that has unfolded in the circles of the oak? The 
sap and root of all life in nature are unseen. And, in 
this human organism, where is the principle of life 
that moves the heart and drives the blood? Xo 
knife has ever laid it bare, no galvanic current has 
forced its secret. These great instruments of civili- 
zation, too, the printing-press, the steam-engine, the 
ship, — behind them all stands the inventor's idea, the 
builder's thought. The grandest actions, the mighti- 
est endeavors, are they not inspired by unseen forces 
of thought and will ? And He who is the life of all 
this life, the fountain of human thought, the ex- 
planation of human endeavor, Him no eye hath seen, 
or can see. When we look to the things which are 
not seen, we look to the sources of the highest 
power. 

II. " For the things which are seen are temporal ; 
but the things which are not seen are eternal.*' I 
observe, in the next place, that this truth suggests 
the standard of true knowledge. The most fatal hin- 
drance to all knowledge is the conceit of present 
attainment. Our hope for all ignorance is grounded 
in its humility. Let any one assume that he needs 
to know no more, or that there is no more to be 
known, and all intellectual vitality departs from him. 
For this intellectual life consists in the consciousness 



84 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 



of perpetual acquisition and perpetual need. When 
our knowledge becomes a pond, instead of a river, it 
stagnates, — it stagnates unless it is continually fed. 
I do not assert that anybody consciously and deliber- 
ately assumes this position, that he knows all things, 
or that no more is to be known. But, in effect, how 
many do assume this position ! In what practical 
forms this assumption breaks out ! It is expressed, 
for instance, by him who virtually limits all truth to 
his own creed, or all right to his party, who regards 
every innovation as heretical, and every adverse 
argument as folly. Sometimes in political action 
men undertake to compress ideas into a definite 
organism. But truth will not be thus cramped and 
excluded. It heaves up in an irresistible ground- 
swell, it oozes through planks and crannies, and splits 
political platforms into match-wood. In religious 
matters, men presume to call their position alone 
orthodox, compacted and settled for all time ; and 
the inquiry that stretches beyond these barriers, 
the propositions that dispute this or that point, are 
pronounced presumptuous. What is this but a con- 
ceit of absolute knowledge? No, inquiry is not 
infidelity, the earnest utterance of conviction is not 
infidelity; but lack of faith in the illimitability and 
permanence of truth, lack of faith in the unseen, is 
infidelity. 

At least a cure for such assumptions is found by 
looking to " the things which are not seen." If the 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 



35 



immense region which lies outside our actual knowl- 
edge does not drive us to the conviction that will 
sometimes force itself upon wise minds, the convic- 
tion that we know nothing absolutely, at least it 
confirms the suggestion that we know but little, and 
that our knowledge is relative ; which, if in some de- 
gree a humiliating, is also a profitable and consoling 
conclusion. 

For who shall estimate the riches, the possibilities, 
that are hidden from our sight ? — glories that lie all 
around the visible world, such as "eye hath not 
seen, . . . neither hath it entered into the heart of 
man to conceive." This earth on which we dwell, 
how fruitful is it in sources of astonishment ! And 
yet, in the sweep of telescopic vision, our earth, with 
all that it contains, dwindles to an atom. But all 
this magnificent theatre of the visible is merely the 
vestibule of the invisible, while the entire physical 
creation is only the star-woven veil that hides those 
finer realities, with which, as yet, we are not fitted to 
hold communion. The unseen, — what unimagin- 
able modes of being, what teeming energies, harbor 
in its bosom ! And yet there are men who talk, and 
who live, as though all things lay open to the natural 
eye, as though their horizon were the limit of the 
universe ; who define and decide as though the won- 
derful must be the untrue, as though there were no 
marvels in a bloodvessel or a nerve, as though their 
own conscious being were not linked with invisible 
relations. 



36 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 



And, passing into the region of our daily life, I 
ask, considering the conditions of our actual knowl- 
edge, is there not a suggestion and a caution as to 
how we decide upon the movements of Providence ? 
For the works and the ways of God are intimately 
involved with " the things which are not seen ; " and 
surely, in this consciousness of human limitation, there 
is ground not only for humility, but for trust and 
consolation. And this leads to the final head of this 
discourse. 

III. " For the things which are seen are temporal ; 
but the things which are not seen are eternal." I 
observe, that in this assertion is indicated the stand- 
ard of true life. For man's true life is above the 
level of the senses. If, as we have just seen, it be- 
trays a miserable condition of mental poverty for any 
man to assume that the scope of all knowledge is 
within the limits of that which he positively knows, 
what must be said concerning those who not only 
think thus, but live thus ? They are absorbed in that 
which they can see and grasp, which yields only sen- 
sual delight, and endows them with nothing but 
material power. Surely this is not true human life. 
It is balked and dwarfed life. At the best it is but 
animal life. For the highest elements of our being 
are unseen elements. Such is the source from which 
we spring, the goal towards which we drift. That 
with which we are most intimately involved, in 
which we have the deepest interest, which sustains 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 37 



us while we sleep, and flows in all the currents of our 
action, and rebukes or consecrates all we do, is not 
palpable, like our food or raiment or houses or 
money. It is unseen. And in a short time, at the 
longest, our bodily peculiarity and all that pertains 
thereto will drop as a garment, and we shall pass into 
the unseen. And if practically we neglect this 
truth we cannot truly live. I have already shown 
that this estimate of things that are not seen does 
not cause us to depreciate unduly the things which 
are seen. It only sets these visible objects in their 
right relations, and exposes their real value. As this 
earnest conviction of unseen realities is the spring of 
practical power and true knowledge, so is it the con- 
dition of the highest life. 

That which we implicitly trust, that which we 
truly love, forms an essential constituent of our be- 
ing. We may confidently say that much of any 
man's life is involved with that in which he trusts, 
and which he loves. But are not these unseen 
things ? If they are not, then they are perishable 
things ; and we are weak in our trust, as weak as are 
the sources of our strength and our delight. There 
is nothing that the eye sees, or the hand touches, 
that is not liable to change and to vanish. Is it some 
dear form of our affection? Do we garner in our 
hearts its mere earthly relations ? Then we are weak 
in the frailty of that fond object, we are exposed 
in its liabilities, we plant our peace in that which is 



38 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 



uncertain, that which disease shatters, and time 
blights, and which may drop away like other fair and 
tender things, under the dark rain or the frost. Or 
do we trust in some outward possession of power, of 
reputation, of health or prosperity ? Then are we 
the slaves of circumstance, and the counters of for- 
tune. 

I repeat, then, in proportion as we trust in that 
which is seen, we are weak in its weakness, and inse- 
cure in its uncertainty. And it is thus with what- 
ever we truly love. Our affections are sure of their 
objects only as they intwine themselves with the un- 
seen, — not the mere bodily presence, but the death- 
less thought, the beauty of the soul, the wealth of 
immortal love, all recognized, but all unseen. Our 
possessions are firm when they become parts of our- 
selves, intrinsic elements of our spiritual but hidden 
nature. And he whose hope is anchored in heaven, 
and whose reliance is upon God, is entangled with no 
uncertainty, and fears neither the hostility nor the 
failure of earthly things. Such has been the trust, 
such the love, of those who have most nobly filled 
the compass of a true life ; Paul, for instance, who 
was so strong in all his trials, and so victorious, be- 
cause, said he, " we look not at the things which are 
seen, but at the things which are not seen." And let 
me once again press home upon you his reason for this 
choice : " For the things which are seen are temporal ; 
but the things which are not seen are eternal." I 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 



39 



urge you to form a right conception of this statement. 
Do not abide in the conceit that the things which are 
not seen by and by will be seen, and that the differ- 
ence between these and the things which are now 
seen is only a difference of space and time. The 
things which are eternal never can be seen, be- 
cause they do not belong to the category of sensuous 
objects. They are spiritual things. You never can 
see the right, the good, the true. Only expres- 
sions, or external symbols of these, come before 
the bodily eye. The things which are seen are, by 
their intrinsic conditions, perishable. Sensuously 
perceived, they have a sensuous destiny. Noth- 
ing on which you can place your eye is perma- 
nent. In periods longer or shorter it changes, and 
passes away, — the roof that covers you, as well as 
the body in which you are enshrined; the stone 
that may mark where you lie, as well as the pyra- 
mids, the populous city through which you now 
walk, the mountains, and the sea. Paul looked 
through and looked beyond all such things. He 
knew that Corinth, with all its power and all its 
splendid corruption, would pass away, but not the 
truth which he preached. That pertained to the 
things which are invisible. The decrees of Caesars, 
the persecutions of governors, the bloody arena, the 
chains, and the scourge, he cared not for them: 
they were temporal, they were as nothing compared 
with those great objects on which his eyes, his in- 

i 



40 THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 



ward vision of faith, were fixed, — the unseen God, 
Christ, and the glorious crown — unseen, for these 
are eternal. " The things which are seen are 
temporal." Let us keep the antithesis fairly bal- 
anced. " Surely," we may be ready to say, " these 
are the most familiar things, — the well-known 
objects of our old home, the earth, the flowers, the 
sunlight, the sea, those forms and aspects that de- 
light our eyes and inspire our thoughts. Especially 
are these things identified with our dearest human 
relations, with those who are close to our hearts." 
But, concerning these, is that which we really know 
and love only that which is seen? After all, con- 
sider how much that is dearest to us, and that we 
should most hope for, and that pertains to our high- 
est moods of thought, is comprehended in " that 
which is not seen." 

Unseen ! — such is the characteristic of God, the 
greatest and best of beings, the perfect one. The 
unseen ! — it is the home of the blessed. Struggling 
men and women, with their storm-beaten hearts, have 
sailed into its peaceful harbor. Heroes and mar- 
tyrs have been drawn up to it, their bloody gar- 
ments transfigured to glory. The weary have sunk 
joyfully into its rest. While from the earth which 
he trod with feet of toil and mercy, and from the 
grave whose gloomy gates he tore asunder, Jesus 
ascended to it. The unseen ! Many whom we have 
loved, whom we still love, have gone thither. Our 



THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 



41 



fathers and mothers, clear companions vanishing so 
strangely away, our children with their little folded 
hands, and the mysterious shadow on their faces, — 
all these have passed into the unseen. It is only the 
body that we see. The kindling thought, the stead- 
fast love, the spiritual element that looks through the 
eye, and throbs in the warm heart, and holds commu- 
nion with us day by day, — all these are unseen. 

" The things which are seen are temporal." On 
the whole, ought we not to be thankful that it is so ? 
For among those tilings which we see are the forms 
and conditions of evil, the multiform aspects of sin 
and suffering and misery. " The things which are 
seen are temporal;" but, God be praised! "the 
things which are not seen are eternal." For, surely, 
the greatest and best things, the intrinsic joy of 
goodness, the assurance of truth, the peace of right- 
eousness, are of " the things which are not seen." 
Not seen are the enduring principles, the great ideals 
for which heroes and martyrs, individuals and na- 
tions, strive and suffer in dark and trying seasons. 
The things which we do see are the conflicts and 
failures and shadows of the hour. But by no sensu- 
ous eye are discerned the precious results which are 
wrought out and bequeathed to future generations. 
All that pertains to our highest and truest life is in- 
volved with "the things which are not seen; " things 
not seen, yet present; not palpable, but mighty; 
things not to which we go by and by, but which 



42 THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. 



are with us now, things not of the letter, but of 
the spirit, the essence of divine reality, not the 
mere visible forms. 

In fact, each of us has some ideal. As in battle 
the soldier regards his flag, so in life every man actu- 
ally regards some signal-point, high or low, worthy 
or unworthy, which prompts his action. The writer 
of this epistle proclaims his signal-point. Hearer, 
what is yours ? This was the attitude of the Apostle 
Paid : in all his toils and perils, still " fighting the 
good fight," he looked to " the things which are not 
seen." 



III. 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 

" And Jesus said, Who touched me? " —Luke viii. 45. 

THIS question was occasioned by the conduct of a 
woman who, suffering under a long and grievous 
disease, for which she had in vain tried human skill, 
took advantage of the crowd which had gathered 
around the Saviour, and touched the fringe of his 
garment. For this was the strong conviction in the 
poor woman's mind, " If I may but touch his clothes, 
I shall be whole." Her faith was justified, and the 
affliction of years vanished in a moment. " Who 
touched me?" said Jesus. "Master," replied his 
disciples, " the multitude throng thee and press thee, 
and sayest thou, Who touched me?" "Somebody 
hath touched me," said Jesus again, "for I perceive 
that virtue hath gone out of me." Then the woman, 
perceiving that she could not be concealed, came 
tremblingly forward and confessed all. Upon this 
followed the glad announcement, " Daughter, be of 
good comfort : thy faith hath made thee whole ; go 
in peace." 

43 



44 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



Perhaps it is hardly necessary for me to dwell 
upon the question of the woman's motive in this 
instance. Her desire for concealment may not have 
been in any respect wrong. ISTor does it appear that 
she wished to obtain the benefit of the miracle by 
stealth. Probably she adopted this secret method 
from fear of popular prejudice. Nevertheless, for 
her spiritual as well as her bodily good, for the good 
of those who stood by, and also for our own good, 
it was well that the act should be made public, and 
receive the open sanction of the Redeemer. 

But, in the present discourse, I especially call 
your attention to our Saviour's question. And I call 
your attention to it because of the truths which that 
question implies or suggests, "Who touched me?" 
Now, we might think that Peter and the other disci- 
ples made a very reasonable reply to this, that, with 
with such a crowd thronging and pressing around 
Jesus, he must, as a matter of course, be touched at 
every moment, and at all points. But in this 
woman's touch there was a peculiarity, there was an 
emphasis, to which the Saviour mercifully responded. 
It was not like the unconsidered pressure of the 
crowd. In one word, it was a touch with ^purpose. 
It was a thrilling touch of faith and need. And this 
presents the point which I wish particularly to 
illustrate. 

My hearers, there is much meaning in a touch. 
In passing along these crowded streets how readily 



THE EAENEST TOUCH. 



45 



do we distinguish the touch of friendly recognition, 
the touch that claims special attention, from the 
general pressure of the multitude ! How different is 
even a child's touch of supplication or affection from 
the collision of hurrying and unheeding forms? 
Take the stranger alone in the great city, the 
loneliest of all places to such as he ; take the poor, 
friendless wanderer, drifting along without regard or 
S}'mpathy, — and with what deep, pathetic truth might 
*he say, as the ceaseless crowd sweeps by, " Nobody 
has touched me." 

But I come to a more special point, and it really 
suggests all that I have to say at this time. I come 
to the point involved in this simple question : of all 
the multitudes that throng and press around Jesus, 
who of us touches him ? For I assume the fact, that, 
in the essence and power of his personality, Jesus is 
with us still. He stands before us in the records of 
the New Testament. He is with us in the ordi- 
nances of the sanctuary. He is proclaimed every 
sabbath day. He is with us in institutions that 
enshrine his spirit, and try to do a portion of his 
work. For ages Jesus has been travelling on, per- 
forming his miracles of civilization and of love. 
And while he has infused such new life into a para- 
lytic humanity, and cast out demons of violence, 
and lifted up bruised heads, and comforted sore 
hearts, alas, how many of the aspects that met his 
gaze of old linger among us still ! — the same pale 



46 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



faces of woe, the same red eyes of weeping, the lame 
and the blind, the dumb and the insane, Jairuses 
beseeching for their children's lives, and widows fol- 
lowing their dead sons to the grave. But as the 
Kedeemer's presence is no more a bodily presence, so 
his works of deliverance are no more external works. 
Nevertheless, he is with us now to do the same great 
work as of old, the work of which the external 
miracles were only symbols, the work which, deeper 
than the physical cure, we trust was wrought in the 
soul of the poor woman who touched him, a work of 
spiritual help and healing. 

And crowds throng and press around Jesus to-day, 
as crowds have pressed and thronged around him in 
all times since he came. For the religion of Jesus 
is not — in some sense we can hardly say that it 
ever has been — an unpopular religion. Even in the 
time of Christ's personal advent, even concerning 
the nation that rejected him and crucified him, it is 
said that " the common people heard him gladly." 
And everywhere, in cities and villages, in desert 
places, on the mountain-side and by the sea, eager 
and reverential multitudes gathered about him. 
There is more than one sense to this term " popular." 
It may indicate, as we well know, a very fickle and 
a very superficial condition. It is by no means a 
sign of strength or depth or truthfulness, when a man 
or an idea is " popular." And yet there is a sense 
in which popularity rests on permanence, and testifies 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 47 

to intrinsic excellence and power. That which ele- 
vates the minds, and fills the hearts, and meets the 
moral wants of the people, is in the best sense popu- 
lar, and has in itself a witness to its truth. And in 
this way the religion of Jesus has been " popular." 
Because of its universality, because of its adaptednesSy 
it has been a religion of the people, a religion of the 
multitude. Because of this it has survived all perse- 
cutions, all assaults, and even the inconsistencies of 
its own professed disciples; and it will survive all 
these. And so with us to-day, I trust not merely 
nominally, but at least with some perception of its 
truth and power, Christianity is the 'popular reli- 
gion. 

Nevertheless, in this last remark the ambiguity of 
this term " popular " recurs. Christianity, I repeat, 
is popular in the sense of being applicable to the 
needs of the human heart, and to the aspirations of 
the human soul. In its substance fitted to the peo- 
ple, it has deep and imperishable roots in the condi- 
tions of our spiritual being. But is it not also the 
popular religion in this other and less genuine sense 
to which I have referred, in the sense of mere super- 
ficial acceptance ? While, as I have just said, I trust 
that some perception of its real truth and power 
widely prevails, still, is it not too much the case that 
Christianity is only nominally received, that it is a 
traditional rather than a personal religion, that it is 
maintained as a form rather than a conviction ? Is 



48 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



it not largely accepted by a spirit that is much more 
ready to talk gospel than to practise it ; a spirit 
that might be quite willing to put the name of its 
divine Author and Founder into the Constitution of 
the United States, and yet remain as before uninflu- 
enced by his life and regardless of his claims, and, 
therefore, only add one more illustration of saying, 
" Lord ! Lord ! " without doing the will of the Lord ? 

No, we do not lack symbolical expressions of Chris- 
tian belief. Our churches, for instance, are well 
filled. It is a cheering sight, on a pleasant Sunday, 
while the pulse of traffic ceases to throb along these 
stony arteries, and the busy marts are closed, to see 
the streams of human life flowing to and from our 
places of Christian worship. I say, of ^ijleasant Sun- 
day, because it must be confessed that the popular 
faith is somewhat atmospherical in its relations. It 
falls with the barometer, and collapses under a cloud, 
while, apparently, health is more precarious and 
raindrops are more malignant on Sunday than on any 
other day. Nevertheless, this spectacle of church- 
attendance is cheering, because I believe that it is 
impelled by at least some half-conscious force of con- 
viction. I find no evidence in this country, or in any 
other, that the interest in church-services is dying 
out, at least where the great realities of religion are 
earnestly and effectively presented. And much that 
seems to indicate the contrary condemns the un 
faithfulness of profession, and not the religion of 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



49 



the Master. Around us there is the form of 
Christian reverence, there breathes the air of Chris- 
tian sentiment, showing that there is a depth of reli- 
gious conviction somewhere. Once more, then, I say- 
that Christianity is a religion of the multitude, and 
crowds', as of old, gather around the Saviour. But, 
among all these, who touches him? 

In other words, how many feel the reality of a per- 
sonal relation to Jesus? How many consciously rec- 
ognize that their lives are implicated with his life ? 
With how many is all this conformity any thing more 
than mere historical, traditional Sunday observance? 
How many own the burden of a moral disease that 
is more radical than palsy, or fever, or leprosy of 
the flesh ? Alas ! no more in proportion, perhaps, 
than anions the multitudes who thronged around 
Jesus nineteen hundred vears ago. 

I do not presume to judge the motives of those 
who appear in our churches; but I maybe permitted 
to suggest that many come merely from curiosity, to 
see, to hear, to admire, to criticise ; or they come 
from habit, or as a form of conventional routine. But 
they come with no consciousness of soul-need, with 
no heart-hunger; and they go as they come. Xo, 
not all. Among this multitude, perhaps, some sorrow- 
ing man or woman, some poor outcast it may be, all 
secretly and silently has crept to Him, touched, as it 
were, the hem of his garment, and gone away with 
his blessing in the soul. Jesus is with us still. Con- 



50 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



sciously or unconsciously, each of us, as each in that 
crowd of old, bears some relation to him. But I 
ask again, who of us, like that woman, approaches 
him with an intense purpose ? I do not accuse these 
multitudes of open disbelief or of mocking unbelief. 
I have already suggested that they are moved by 
some half-conscious force of latent faith. Nay, there 
are many who may say, " We are not indifferent con- 
cerning Jesus. We do touch him." If so, then the 
question occurs, How do you touch him ? 

I. Of some, of many, it may be said that they 
touch Jesus with their respect. No doubt the religion 
of Christ is respected. Christianity is at least a 
respectable institution. Old, ploughed-out, sun-baked 
worldlings, with not a particle of live faith in their 
souls, not so much as a grain of mustard-seed, respect 
the purity and tenderness of the great Teacher of 
Nazareth. If nothing more, they confess that this 
respect is such a prevalent prejudice among the 
people at large, that it will not do to offend it, and it 
must at least be simulated. Again, the man who 
by some analytical process in the crucible of criti- 
cism has resolved the gospel into an unsubstantial 
ether, the gaseous wisp or nebulous outline of a his- 
tory, respects the personality whose features so endur- 
ingly abide upon the pages of the New Testament. 
I will not stop now to inquire what must have been 
the original of that portrait, so attractive, so abiding, 
so mighty in its influence upon the minds and hearts 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



51 



of men. I merely say that it exerts this influence, and 
commands the respect even of those who deny that 
it represents any substantial reality. 

Yes, it is wonderful how the character of Jesus 
has impressed, and does impress, even sceptical and 
thoughtless minds. There are those who do not 
hesitate to employ the name of God in the lightest 
and most reckless forms of speech, who will not swear 
by the name of the Redeemer ; and this form of oath 
is abandoned to the coarsest and most vulgar men. 
Nevertheless, all this respect is not like that touch 
which was given in the earnest purpose of faith and 
need. 

II. There are those who touch Jesus with their 
opinions. And they are very sharp and decided opin- 
ions. So sharp that they cut away all lines of tol- 
eration, so decided that they leave no possible 
margin of charity. Now, in matters of religion, as 
in all other things, there can be no objection to dis- 
tinctness of view. And yet is it not true that there 
are some minds whose vision is clear and definite, 
exactly in proportion to the narrowness of their hori- 
zon ? It is better, perhaps, to be sure of every thing 
than to be sure of nothing ; but there are regions of 
divine reality, where we may fitly halt, and be hum- 
ble, and confess that we do not know. Moreover, 
there are points where it may not be necessary that 
we should decidedly and clearly know, where the 
practical efficacy of a truth for the soul does not de- 



52 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



pend upon absolute accuracy of definition in the 
intellect. Creeds may be useful as confessions of 
present belief, or as mere statements of opinion in 
which a number of people concur. But they have 
no validity as fixed and final standards of truth, cer- 
tainly not as tests of religious and Christian life. 
Of course some shape of opinion is essential to prac- 
tical conduct, and we cannot trust in that concerning 
which we have no intellectual perception. Still, 
there may be enough of mental apprehension to war- 
rant our trust, though not enough to analyze all the 
grounds of that trust, much less to set up definite 
propositions as imperative for the faith of others. It 
is not likely that the opinions which the woman. in 
the narrative before us held concerning Jesus could 
be formulated or defined. They would hardly accord 
with any doctrinal standard, or answer the requisi- 
tions of our creeds. But she apprehended enough 
to trust him, to draw near to him, and to touch him. 
She felt her need of healing power, and was sure that 
he could heal her. We may value our opinions, we 
must value them if they seem to us identical with 
truth, especially if they make that truth vital in our 
souls. But, held as mere opinions, their intellectual 
validity gives us no real contact with the Saviour. 
"We may actually be what we claim to be, exclusive 
possessors and vigilant guardians of orthodoxy, and 
yet be far from him. The essential thing is not what 
we think about him, but what he himself, in his per- 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



53 



sonal relations, in his healing, life-giving power, is 
to ns. 

Ill, Again, there are those who seek to touch 
Jesus through sacraments and ceremonies. The idea 
of the woman appears to have been of this kind. She 
thought, " If I may but touch his garment, I shall be 
whole ; " whereas we know that the virtue went out 
of him. But, at the core, her faith was right and 
effectual. So, in the use of the symbol or ceremony, 
there may be the consecrating efficacy of an earnest 
purpose. Thousands are thus blest, who perhaps 
could be spiritually helped and healed in no other 
way. The heart of faith sanctifies the rudest form ; 
and even the poor African, who grovels before his 
fetish, through all that darkness may touch some 
fringe of the divine Presence, and be nearer to him 
whose fulness is in all things, than the philoso- 
pher who gazes into the infinite, and coldly sneers. 
Such as these, with their clear perceptions and 44 lib- 
eral ideas,*' do not touch him, while he graciously 
accepts, through whatever channels, the precipita- 
tion of the yearning and filial soul. But when the 
ceremony is assumed as the end, when the symbol 
is taken for the thing signified, and the sacrament 
made exclusive and absolute, in one word, when 
devotion is regarded as talismanic, then it is time to 
assert that the essence of religion is not in wafer or 
crucifix, in form or substance, but in the contact 
of spirit with spirit, and that the virtue is in Him 
alone. 



54 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



IV. There are those who touch Jesus timidly and 
fitfully. Their communion with him is felt only in 
impulses of intermittent enthusiasm or seasons of 
excitement, or it is held as a secret of which they 
are ashamed. We must, indeed, respect the modesty 
of sincere faith, the sacred reticence that guards the 
deepest and truest feelings of the heart. We know 
that religious emotion may eyaporate in words, and 
that sterling principle may be less demonstrative 
than the noisy ring of cant. But, notwithstanding 
all imperfections, he who has really touched Jesus 
will in some way make the secret manifest, not in the 
mere profession of the lips, but in the confession of 
the life. 

In fine, the true touching of Jesus is in the spirit 
with which the poor woman touched him, with a 
sense of need and earnest desire for his help. And 
we can thus come only as w r e are awakened to a con- 
sciousness of our individuality. We are prone to 
move with the mass of men, to think, believe, and 
worship with the mass. We must break through the 
crowd of and for ourselves, by the impulse of our 
own conviction, awakened to the fact, that, beyond 
the mere means of living, there is for each of us the 
great interest, the unfathomed reality, of life itself. 
And we can truly live only as we get near, as we 
hold communion with, that divine life. We need this 
not only to die by, but to live by, — to harmonize 
our nature, to consecrate our powers, to curb our 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



55 



self-will. The young and the happy need it, as the 
condition of all strong and free and noble being, of 
all true manhood and womanhood. Let us at once 
and forever put away the conceit that associates 
religion only with life's gloomiest hours and with its 
last, that regards it only as a retreat from the world 
when the world has nothing for us but sorrow and 
trial, a refuge, into which we may at last crawl with 
our paralytic souls, and bring the shattered and dese- 
crated glass of our mortality to sweeten its lees. And 
yet, God be thanked, it is a refuge, full of help and 
cure when all else is desolate. Standing here amidst 
the environment of material things, Christ interprets 
life. 

In this vast mechanism of forms and forces, what 
exceptional significance has man ? The processes of 
nature are impartial and relentless. Within the 
limits of visible things, the words of the Psalmist are 
mournfully exact : the days of man " are as grass ; 
as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the 
wind passeth over it, and it is gone ; and the place 
thereof shall know it no more." And what hints of 
another life can we extort from the unknown regions 
of the universe ? We may argue that these anxious 
inquiries are futile, and should, therefore, be re- 
pressed. But this gospel of ignorance can never be 
a gospel of peace, for these aspirations cannot be 
repressed. The life within us yearns to be forever. 
The thought of annihilation, if not absolutely incon- 



56 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



ceivable, is inexpressibly desolate. There is only 
one other conception that is more dreadful, the idea 
of endless suffering. With only this alternative 
before us, we might indeed say, " Better that all 
there is of us should crumble to unconscious dust, 
or, happily, 'turn to daisies from the grave,' than that 
we should linger in eternal pain." Thus, baffled by 
the limitations of the material world, we turn with 
the eagerness of the woman of old to One who has 
rent the veil, and who comes to us from beyond. 
Touching him, we lay hold of divine realities, and 
receive in our own souls the assurance of an eter- 
nal life. 

But there are thousands for whom such questions 
need not be answered nor repressed; for, in their 
minds, such questions have never sharply emerged 
at all. They are immersed in the crowd of com- 
mon cares. They are of the weak, the sorrowing, 
and the sinful. Their need is urgent, and of the 
very hour. They want that faith, that peace, that 
reconciliation, which shall stanch the tormenting 
issue of their souls. Indeed, who of us is not weak, 
or needy, or sorrowful, or sinful? Who of us does 
not continually want that inspiring contact with 
something far higher and better than we, — with a 
divine strength and virtue, — to lift us up and carry 
us through ? But in whatever way the depths of 
our nature are stirred and broken up, in whatever 
way we truly feel that need, we shall earnestly seek 



THE EARNEST TOUCH. 



57 



that help. And the divine Helper and Healer is 
everywhere. We may come to him through the 
crowd of our toils and our cares, in our homes, in the 
places of our labor, and by the wayside, But espe- 
cially may we draw near to him in the opportunities 
of the sanctuary. However feebly his word may 
there be spoken, however imperfectly his help shown 
forth, through all, if only we are in earnest, we may 
find him, touch some fringe of his garment, and feel 
the healing of his Spirit. There are those here, I 
trust, who have thus found him, and have gone on 
their way rejoicing. Otherwise, our association with 
him is only the contact of the crowd. Otherwise, 
our coming together here is of little worth. And 
might he not say, speaking as it were to us, " Many 
have come and gone here, with or without an ear- 
nest purpose, from habit or from curiosity, to pray 
or to speculate, to meditate or to sleep. You have 
come and gone. You have heeded, or remained heed- 
less. You have thought, or wandered in thought. 
You have grown better, or you have grown worse. 
But — who touched me?" 



IV. 



RUTH. 

" And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from 
following after thee : for whither thou goest, I will go; and where 
thou lodgest, I will lodge : thy people shall be my people, and thy 
God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be 
buried." — Ruth i. 16, 17. 

THE Book of Ruth, with the ancient Jews and 
some of the Fathers, formed a part of the book of 
Judges ; but, in our English Bible, this little domestic 
story, occupying only a leaf or two, stands apart 
from the common track of the history, and we come 
upon it as one might come upon some quiet rural 
landscape, after travelling through scenes of excite- 
ment and war. And among all the personages de- 
picted in this portion of the Scriptures, — among the 
forms of prophet, warrior, bard, and king, — perhaps 
there is none so attractive, there is none that wins 
us with such gentle beauty, as the picture of that 
Moabitish woman, following the dictates of her own 
true heart, and gleaning after the reapers in the 
barley-harvest. 

For, in tracing the outlines of the story, I only 

58 



RUTH. 



59 



recall that which, must be familiar to yon. During 
a season of famine, a man of Bethlehem named 
Elimelech, with his wife Naomi and his two sons, 
emigrated to the land of Moab. These sons married 
two women of their adopted country, named Orpah 
and Ruth. But in a little while, as the record so 
briefly and touchingiy recites, Naomi "was left of 
her two sons and her husband." Alone, in a foreign 
land, learning that her people had once more been 
blessed with bread, she prepared to return to her 
own country. Alas, how familiar the affliction 
which that widowed and childless woman bore away 
in her own heart ! How fresh her experience of 
thousands of years ago, appealing to us to-day 
through the channels of our common nature ! It 
is but a story of the next street, or perhaps of the 
very house in which you dwell. No unusual thing 
has it been, since Naomi's time, for those who went 
forth in peace to come back to the old spot desolate, 
scattering in the furrows of their early hope the 
fruition of their tears. I think there is something 
peculiarly expressive in the question which was asked 
of the returning woman as she came into her native 
place. We are told that "the whole city was moved, 
and they said, Is this Naomi? " as though there had 
been excited not only the feeling of surprise but of 
doubt, as though in the face of that Naomi whom 
they had known in former years, her friends saw the 
shadow of something that was not Naomi, — the 



60 



BUTH. 



added expression of time and sorrow. " Call me 
not Naomi," she replied, "call me Mara: for the 
Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went 
out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again 
empty." 

It was when Xaomi had started upon this sad 
journey homeward, that the incident occurred which 
is associated with the text. She felt that she had no 
special claim upon the companionship of her daugh- 
ters-in-law. She knew their attachment to herself, 
and she invoked the blessing of the Lord upon them 
for their kindness to the dead ; but she had not the 
heart to carry them away from their home and their 
friends, to share her desolation, and her comparative 
strangeness even in her own land. The affection of 
Orpah was, apparently, such as we often find, — 
easily moved and easily turned. She wept, she 
kissed her mother-in-law, and then went back to her 
people and her gods. But the love of Ruth was of 
that kind which never ebbs. The dearest associa- 
tions of her life were bound up with the returning 
Naomi. She inherited the sanctity of past vows. 
She was the representative of the dead. Ruth could 
not tear asunder this last living tie of memory and 
of love. " Entreat me not to leave thee," she cried, 
" or to return from following after thee : for whither 
thou goest, I will go ; and where thou lodgest, I will 
lodge : thy people shall be my people, and thy God 
my God : where thou diest, will I die, and there will 



RUTH. 



61 



I be buried : the Lord do so to me, and more also, 
if aught but death part thee and me." 

The sequel of the story is in cheerful contrast 
with its pathetic beginning. Gleaning in the field 
of Boaz, a wealthy kinsman of her first husband, 
Ruth found favor in his sight ; enlisted his interest 
in behalf of her claims, and, in becoming his wife, 
became the mother of an illustrious descent, an an- 
cestress in the line of David, and the genealogy of 
the Saviour. 

Of course this last-named fact furnishes a reason 
why the story of Ruth should find a place in the 
Bible, and stand among the events of sacred history. 
Yet, surely, if it had not this historical interest, it 
would deserve the place which it holds, because of 
its beautiful accordance with the character of the 
Scriptures, as containing, more than all other books, 
a universal and imperishable literature, a literature so 
fresh to the heart of all ages, so easily translated into 
the sentiments of every nation. For I need not say 
that it is this that constitutes a great literature. It 
is this that gives immortality to Homer and Shak- 
speare. And, even if the Bible had no special divine- 
ness, this element streaming through, all its pages 
would place it first in that row of the world's really 
great books, the whole of which might be ranged 
upon one narrow shelf. 

Well, out of this brief story of Ruth and Naomi, 
as out of every thing else in the Bible, there grow 



62 



BUTH. 



some practical lessons. I might, for instance, take 
up that great lesson, always pertinent, — the lesson of 
Providence. For that which not only the religious 
but the thoughtful mind learns to call b}~ this name 
wrought wonderfully and beautiful^ through the ex- 
perience of that Moabitish woman, out of trouble 
and bereavement drawing the most happy results, 
preparing a splendid reward for her faithfulness, 
and turning the stream of her personal life into 
the grand current of the world's redemption. And 
are we not as much impressed b} r this Providential 
action when it manifests itself through some chain 
of natural incidents like these before us, when it 
winds through some episode of the Bible, as when it 
assumes a more magnificent aspect, and breaks forth 
in miracle? For such incidents, while they really 
authenticate the miracle, and make reasonable the 
belief that He who exercises this general control 
would, for worthy issues, make special manifesta- 
tions, come nearer to us, and suggest the Divine con- 
trol that comprehends all our transactions. She who 
clung to the desolate Naomi, and gleaned after the 
reapers, walks through the gallery of Scripture in 
gentle beauty forever, and stands gloriously in the 
family of the Prince of peace. 

But I wish to call your attention to a more special 
train of thought. There is nothing in this beautiful 
narrative that touches us more tenderly than this 
earnest appeal : " Entreat me not to leave thee, or to 



RUTH. 



63 



return from following after thee : for whither thou 
goest, I will go ; and where thou lodgest, I will 
lodge : thy people shall be my people, and thy God 
my God : where thou diest, will I die, and there will 
I be buried." In this passage I find suggestion for 
some remarks upon True-heartedness and the Tests of 
True-heartedness. And I observe, in the first place, 
that the conduct of Ruth, in the instance before us, 
assures us that there is such a thing as True-hearted- 
ness, and thus teaches a lesson of trust in humanity. 
It reveals certain elements in humanity that are reli- 
able. This trait in the character of Ruth refutes 
that scepticism which is cherished by some, and 
which breaks out in sneers at the moral soundness 
of every man and every woman. This is a detest- 
able philosophy. It is detestable, I mean, when it 
becomes a philosophy. There is a kind of disap- 
pointment to which anybody is liable, — a disappoint- 
ment that involves the giving up of a too credulous 
trust in men, the recoil of the heart's spontaneous 
confidence under the revelations of actual life. 
While we had heard something respecting the deceit- 
fulness of the world, the selfishness of its friendships, 
and the hollowness of its professions, we may have 
thought that to us it would not prove so; and it has 
proved to us even as to others. We have found in 
it a great deal of meanness, and a great deal of fraud, 
and much cold-heartedness under fair protestations. 
We have trusted and been deceived. " The word of 



64 



KTTTH. 



promise to the ear has been broken to the hope." 
We have discovered that the sunshine in our friend's 
face was reflected from the surface of our own pros- 
perity, and that the companion of happy hours is shy 
of our tribulation. We have seen how conscience 
slips out of trade, and philanthropy goes with a 
trumpet, and the sylph is only a woman, and the 
clergyman is but a man, and the patriot a politician, 
and the philosopher a dunce. Out of all this grows 
the temptation to discredit every profession, and to 
look upon the whole world as a masquerade. There 
are times and occasions, in individual and in public 
experience, when this feeling is intensified. But, 
surely, a wise man will soon escape from this mood. 
On the other hand, if that, which with many is only 
a temporary distrust, becomes with anybody a fixed 
theory, it seems to me that it proves, on his part, 
either a shallow experience or a bad heart, and per 
haps both. For no man with a right spirit ever 
thought all the rest totally bad, and no man with a 
comprehensive knowledge of the world ever found 
them so. This social scepticism may be called 
" knowledge of the world ; " but this only shows what 
a superficial affair this so-called knowledge of the 
world is. The hackneyed man of the town boasts 
that he has. seen life all through, when in fact he has 
only seen a little of its surface palpable to the sen- 
suous eye. Very likely, too, he has found there only 
what he brought there, — he has seen such forms a? 



RUTH. 



65 



he evoked. He is no philosopher taking in the wide 
range of humanity, as it lies stretched out under the 
changeful lights of life, and heaving with mysterious 
forces : he knows only its heated zone of appetite 
and passion. He is no social geologist, who has 
pierced the innermost strata of mankind, but only a 
hollow speculator rattling among the pebbles on the 
surface. Much heartlessness, much frivolity and 
sin, will a wise and good man find as he goes about 
in the world, much to dissipate the rosy credulous- 
ness of his youth, and to sadden his philanthropy ; 
but, on the other hand, something of his faith will 
be justified, and he will learn, that, after all, there 
are elements in human nature worthy our trust and 
our love. For such a theory of humanity the lesson 
in the text affords a strong support. The trait that 
attracts us there is Ruth's True-heartedness, the over- 
mastering energy of affection and of duty. And, 
while this trait stands out in such beautiful relief in 
this narrative of the Old Testament, surely we can- 
not believe that this is the only instance of True- 
heartedness, or even that it belongs to an exceptional 
class. No, rather does it stand there representing 
numerous unrecorded instances. It is the cropping 
out, in Scripture history, of a "vein of True-heartedness 
that runs underneath all the selfishness and preten- 
sion of common life. As the chemist finds some ad- 
mixture in what seemed to be a simple element, so, 
doubtless, at the bottom of the purest heart lurks 



66 



RUTH. 



some particle of self, some ingredient of our earthly 
composition. And if one is disposed to turn a mag- 
nifying glass upon this, it will appear enormous ; if 
he beholds it through the lens of a sad or a foul ex- 
perience, it will look grimy or distorted ; or, if with 
nothing more than his naked eye he has a mind to 
notice only the evil that exists among men, he can 
see plenty of it, and it will look badly enough. But 
it is an equally correct theory of human nature, and 
a much more agreeable one, which admits the con- 
viction of some moral loyalty, extant even in the 
obscurest places, and maintained under all trials. It 
is pleasant to think, that, as in the great field of his- 
tory the very spots that glorify it are spots of blood 
and tears shed in token of this True-heartedness, 
spots where the philanthropist toiled, and the mar- 
tyr witnessed for the truth, or where the patriot 
with his dying hands shook aloft the symbols of free- 

if O %/ 

dom, so these common paths of life are lighted by 
some such virtue and sacrifice, and there is some true 
and good thing clung to by the feeblest hands, some 
sanctuary of duty which even the basest cannot be 
tempted to abandon or violate, at least one sentinel 
virtue at the door of every heart that challenges all 
seductions and repels all assaults. It is inspiring to 
think that in high places and in low places, in silent 
faithfulness that never will be recorded, there often 
breathes a spirit like hers, who, loyal to the convic- 
tions of her own true heart, left her land, and her 



RUTH. 



67 



idols, and tlie associations of her youth, to share the 
lot of the weeping Naorai, and in the sacred venture 
of love and duty to find a Home and a Country, a 
God and a Grave. 

I repeat, then, he who adopts a sceptical theory 
of humanity apparently confesses, either his limited 
knowledge or his own corruption. He forgets the 
records of the dead, and he slanders the living ; 
while, as its worst result, such a theory paralyzes all 
generous effort for mankind, and leads to heartless 
indifference or cynical isolation. Nothing good or 
great can spring out of this conception of humanity, 
while its interpretation of things is essentially athe- 
istic. 

But, having thus vindicated human nature as to 
the fact of True-heartedness, let us proceed to con- 
sider its tests. By what signs or expressions may we 
be assured of its presence? I reply that the very 
words of the text, the very ideas to which Ruth 
referred, afford a sufficient indication of these tests : 
" Whither thou goest, I will go ; and where thou 
lodgest, I will lodge : thy people shall be my people, 
and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, 
and there will I be buried.*' These words disclose a 
fourfold test of True-heartedness. Loyalty to any 
one of these — much more, loyalty to all of these — 
reveals the core of a noble and generous humanity. 
For consider what these ideas, expressed in the lan- 
guage of Ruth, really are. They are the ideas of 



68 



RUTH. 



Home, Country, God, and the end of our Mortal life. 

And are there any ideas more vital than these? 
Surely, if one cherishes any sacred and true thoughts 
at all, they must cluster around these things. Home, 
that has sheltered and nourished you, that encloses 
your most secret life, that claims the first flow of 
your affections and their last throb ; Country, that 
organism which links your individual being to a 
public interest, that gives you a share in history, a 
pride in great names, an influence in world-wide 
issues, and, as a second home, inspires j^ou with a 
more comprehensive loyalty; the Grave, which 
bounds all earthly action, and limits every earthly 
condition, that realm where distinctions of home 
and country melt away, the bed where all must lie, 
" the relentless crucible " in which rags and splen- 
dor alike dissolve, the gateway to a stupendous mys- 
tery; and Grod, the Infinite Being to whom the 
instincts of our souls respond, to whom in our high- 
est consciousness we aspire, the Source and the Inter- 
pretation of all existence, the Light that comprehends 
our darkness, the Strength that sustains our weak- 
ness, the Presence to which in our guilt and our 
adoration we lift our cry, the Nature in which we 
live and move and have our being, — these are great 
realities ; and it appears to me that the words of Ruth 
are so eloquent, and her devotion seems so great, 
because of the greatness of the things she spoke of. 
Indeed, does not this ground of thought and action 



RUTH. 



69 



constitute a grand distinction of our humanity ? If 
in many points man is closely linked to the brute, is 
he not largely separated by his thoughts concerning 
these things, and by his action upon them ? Ascribe 
to the animal such affections, such faculties, such 
power of reasoning, as we may and as we must, surely 
no one will claim for him such conceptions as man 
entertains concerning home and country and God and 
the limitations of his earthly lot. These are manifes- 
tations of human nature which project beyond the 
sphere of mere animal life, and indicate a larger scope 
of being. They are marks of immortality. Start 
with any one of these ideas, and see to what it leads. 
For instance, the relationships of home, — is there 
not an argument for immortality in these ? Need I 
put this question to any heart that has ever known 
its best conditions, or been stirred by its affections ? 
Need I ask any, who with overflowing love have 
ever stood by the cradle or the death-bed ? It is 
this home affection that is first of all thwarted by 
the mysteries of our lot, and that claims perpetual 
reunion. I will not elaborate this argument, but 
merely refer to the fact that all round this earth, 
from the vacant places and shattered links of count- 
less families, there are hearts that gravitate to the 
unseen, and there are faces that with tearful trust 
look upward for those who have gone from home. 

Or start from the idea of cauntry, and is not the 
same conclusion unfolded ? The duties, the achieve- 



70 



RUTH. 



ments, the historical problems, that pertain to nation- 
ality, do not they suggest it ? And he upon whose 
mind dawns some apprehension of the Infinite, he 
who has some consciousness of the divine image in 
himself, he who feels assured that he holds com- 
munion with the Eternal Spirit, and presses forward 
towards that perfect excellence, never completely to 
attain, but always capable of larger attainment, — 
surely in essence he must be imperishable. And the 
grave itself, dark and silent as it is, to such a con- 
scious soul cannot seem the final barrier of existence, 
but only the suggestive portal of new achievements. 

If, then, these great realities, of which Ruth spoke, 
are associated with all that is deepest and noblest in 
our humanity, he who proves faithful to even one 
of these ideas, who holds it as a sacred conviction, 
and cherishes it with a pure love, has in him the 
core of true-heartedness, the ground of a principle, 
and a possibility in which we may trust. On the 
other hand, in depicting the most depraved man, 
could we say any thing more to the purpose than that 
he violates the sanctities of home, is false to his 
country, disbelieves in God, and has no faith or hope 
that reaches beyond the circle of his animal life ? Is 
not all that discrowns and demoralizes a man in- 
volved or implied in the denial and violation of 
these ? 

And permit me to add that these tests are per- 
sonal and practical, tests by which we may try not 



RUTH. 



71 



so much, the true-heartedness of others, for which we 
may have very little function, but by which each 
may try his own. A man can hardly ask himself a 
more practical question than this : " What are my 
thoughts, and what is my conduct, respecting home, 
country, God, and the limitations of my mortal life ? " 
Whatever your position or estimation in the world, if 
without any over-subtle analysis, or morbid probing 
of conscience, you would ascertain your spiritual 
health or unsoundness, here is a practical test close 
at hand. Ask yourself, then, " What is home to me ? 
What do I make of it ? " For a home of some sort 
you have, and it is the starting-point of your entire 
action. Emerging from it, you take with you influ- 
ences fruitful for good or for evil into the world. 
What, then, is home to you? What do you make 
it to be ? What do you carry into it, and how do 
you start from it into the broader field of life and 
action ? 

And you have a country. It is a sacred organism, 
like the organism of personal life. It binds you to 
the past and the future. It pours the unexhausted 
vitality of the dead into the arteries of the living, 
and pledges your individual life to the life of coming 
generations. In your own case, then, is love of 
country merely a verbal platitude ? Is it, after all, 
only love of comfort, love of gain, love of party, or 
perhaps nothing more sacred than mere hate of party, 
in whose concentrated malignity the nobler claim 



72 



RUTH. 



shrivels like leaves under the frost? Or are you 
inclined to satirize love of country as "mere sen- 
timent," and the patriotic fire that leaps through 
a. nation's life as " preposterous " ? " Sentiment"? 
Yes, it is sentiment; that is the proper word for this 
mysterious impulse, which condenses in its flow all 
the memories and hopes and sanctities of a land. It 
is sentiment : so is a mother's love ; so is reverence 
for the dead; so are the elements of faith and 
devotion, — something which we cannot define, but 
which is spontaneous and irresistible ; something that 
plays upon the grandest pulses of the human heart, 
and thrills through generations ; something which 
keeps sparks alive in dead men's ashes, and with 
rattling drums and loud huzzas impels ranks of 
heroes to glorious death, when the mist of battle 
hangs heavy on the hills, and the morning dewdrops 
are turned to rubies ; a sentiment that charms men 
so that they willingly die for it, and that tightens 
their heartstrings and makes their cheeks grow hot, 
where the symbol of nationality is unfurled. This 
love of country lives in the heart of every true- 
hearted man. When, by any strange infatuation, 
men lose this sentiment, they lose the core of their 
hearts. 

Again, let me ask, what are your thoughts concern- 
ing God? Let that deep question be put to your 
own soul. And what are j^our relations to him ? Is 
he to you any thing more than an intellectual term, 



RUTH. 



73 



or an article of faith ? Is he a reality ? " My soul," 
says the Psalmist, " crieth out for the living God." 
Is he to you the living God, and does your own soul 
cry out to him as such; or is he merely one of 
many gods ? Your Sunday God, perhaps, not your 
market, counting-room, week-day God, nor the God 
to whom you are devoted; so that, clinging to your 
idols, you could not truly say to any man who sin- 
cerely loves and serves him, " Thy God shall be my 
God." 

And the end of your mortal career, the thoughts 
that fitly cluster about the grave, — have they ever 
lodged in your mind to any serious purpose ? " And 
there will I be buried." In these words of Ruth 
there were true womanly calmness and noble fore- 
thought ; and not with morbid intensity, not as over- 
clouding the present work of duty and these earthly 
claims, but with true calmness and noble fore- 
thought, should these considerations of our mortality 
hold their place in our minds. 

I maintain, that, as we act in respect to these four 
great ideas of home, country, God, and the final rest, 
so shall we faithfully or falsely act concerning the 
ends of our being. As these ideas become real to 
our hearts, and in true hearts are cherished, so shall 
we live worthily. 

I remark, finally, that these four ideas are not 
only the tests of personal true-heartedness, — they 
also reveal the great bond of our common humanity. 



74 



KTJTH. 



That which is common to men abides in the hearts 
of men, is linked with the great facts expressed in 
the text. They thus indicate the natural ground of 
human unity. And upon these ideas it is the ten- 
dency of Christianity to develop a still nobler unity. 
While it carries abroad its truth of a universal Fa- 
ther, and its fact of the resurrection of the dead, its 
tendency is to expand the home feeling into a social 
feeling, and to touch the deepest chords of nation- 
ality with a world-wide sentiment stretching from 
land to land, even as the electric wire, crossing the 
globe, catches the interests of every people as it 
passes, and murmurs a glorious prophecy beneath the 
waves. 

Christianity may have larger work to do than we 
can now conceive ; it may gather in for its divine 
Author more transcendent glories : but, so far as this 
world is concerned, its purpose would seem to be 
accomplished when the declaration of Ruth becomes 
a realized result in humanity at large ; when the 
children of men, owning the bonds of one common 
Head, from the sacred sentiment of home shall draw 
fresh streams of social life ; when in the country 
which each loves best each shall discern some interest 
common to all the world; when all shall worship 
one God, the Father, in spirit and in truth; and when 
the light of one transcendent hope shall shine upon 
the places of their mortal rest. 



V. 



CHRIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 

" And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, 
walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on 
the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit ; and they cried 
out for fear." — Matt. xiv. 25, 26. 

THE incident to which I call your attention in the 
present discourse is that of Christ* walking on 
the sea. I propose to consider the spiritual or reli- 
gious significance of this incident, or, rather, of the 
entire narrative with which it is involved. In the first 
place, then, I will briefly recall the circumstances. 
Jesus had been busy with his work of teaching and 
of mercy ; so busy that there was little opportunity 
for that rest, which, if he did not seek for himself, 
he recommended to his disciples. But at length, 
* having distributed the bread of life to the souls 
of the multitude, and literal bread for their needy 
bodies, having sent the people away, and constrained 
his disciples to go before in a ship across the Gali- 
lean Lake to Bethsaida, he sought that refreshment, 
which, more than any thing else, was to him rest 
and help and strength, and so departed into a moun- 

75 



76 



CHRIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



tain to pray. But when evening had come he looked 
out upon the deep, and saw his disciples " toiling in 
rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them." So, 
in the fourth watch of the night, — between three 
and six o'clock in the morning, — through the gloom 
and the tempest, in that mysterious and solemn hour, 
Jesus came to those beset and weary men, walking 
on the sea. "And when the disciples saw him 
walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is 
a spirit; and they cried out for fear." But imme- 
diately Jesus talked with them, and said to them, 
" Be of good cheer ; it is I ; be not afraid ; " and 
going up unto them into the ship the wind ceased. 

Keeping in view, then, the spiritual significance of 
this incident, I remark that it affords an illustration 
of human need and divine help. Or, to state the 
truth in another form, I may say that the passage 
connected with the text illustrates the proposition 
that the religion of Jesus is adapted to human 
necessities, and in this adaptation finds proof of its 
authenticity. I repeat, here are presented two points. 
I. Human need. 
II. Divine help. 

Furthermore, I observe that these two facts are 
involved with two aspects or conditions of humanity. 

I. In the first place, I ask you to consider the 
attitude of man towards the supernatural and the 
unknown. "In the fourth watch of the night Jesus 
went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the 



CHRIST WALKING OX THE SEA. 



77 



disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were 
troubled, saving, It is a spirit ; and they cried out for 
fear.*' This was the cry of men tossed and toiling 
on the wild deep, in the gloom of the yet unbroken 
night, or in that hour when the dawn is struggling 
with the dark. Very startling, very awful, must 
have been to them the appearance of that form, 
advancing through the shadow and over the sea. 
But that was a cry of our common nature ; it was 
a spontaneous, human utterance from a mysterious 
depth, which, under all forms of civilization, under 
all kinds of religion and philosophy, abides in the 
soul of man. The conviction of something beyond 
this world, something outside this realm of visible and 
familiar things, is, at least, a conviction to which man 
very readily awakens. It may not be a very prac- 
tical conviction : thousands may live without any 
intense or steady appreciation of that to which such 
a conviction points. But there are occasions when 
this mysterious deep within us answers to the great 
deep around us. Sometimes this conviction comes 
suddenly, like that instance of the traveller in the 
mountains, whose alpen-stock broke through the icy 
crust projecting from the path on which he was 
walking, and in an instant, through the cleft, there 
were revealed the awful abysses that yawned below. 
But there are three conditions of nature which are 
especially adapted to stir these feelings of mystery 
and awe, and all three are involved with the circum- 



78 



CHRIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



stances of the text : these conditions are night, the 
night sky, and the sea. 

1. Witness the common terror of the dead night- 
time and the dark ; not a mere childish, superstitious 
fright, but a solemn awe creeping over the innermost 
fibres of the heart. " In thought from the vis- 
ions of the night," said Eliphaz, " when deep sleep 
falleth on men, fear came upon me, and trembling, 
which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit 
passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood 
up : it stood still, but I could not discern the form 
thereof." Men who are not cowards, who have 
courage to grapple with any visible and tangible 
shape, who would not blench before " the battery's 
jaws of flame," may often have felt the shivering 
awe, if they have not had the actual experience, of 
Eliphaz. And this is not a credulity begotten of 
what some may see fit to call " religious notions," 
and " old wives' fables." Men who have cast off all 
forms of Christian belief, as mere swaddling-bands of 
the ignorant mind, have, nevertheless, been moved 
by the mystery enveloped in the hours of darkness, 
and have acted upon the conviction that something 
must people that undefined space into which the 
visible world melts away, that dim horizon through 
which Jesus broke, when, in the fourth watch of the 
night, he came walking on the sea. 

2. Or, again, who has ever looked up through 
the darkness, and gazed upon those orbs of light 



CHRIST WALKING OX THE SEA. 



79 



and glory that shame all splendors of the earth 
and the daytime, without the spontaneous convic- 
tion of powers and intelligences dwelling outside 
these beaten ways of our traffic and our thought ? 
Although the astronomer may fail to detect any 
positive proof of the inhabitability of other worlds, 
we cannot believe that the attributes of life and 
mind are confined to the little planet on which we 
dwell. 

u Look up through night, the world is wide: 
Think'st thou this mould of hopes and fears 
Can find no statelier than its peers. 
In yonder hundred million spheres?" 

Even if we could assent to those speculations 
which would resolve all those orbs that burn in space 
into desolate masses of fluid light, none the less 
would there rise within us deep yearnings of the soul 
to penetrate the secret of the universe, to know what 
is the constitution of the system that converges upon 
our world, to discover what power and purpose has 
kindled that boundless realm with all this niacmifi- 
cence, and that must have some relations with our 
earthly dwelling-place, and some control over this 
transient, yet real and mysterious, life. What influ- 
ences rain upon us from those starry depths? What 
unseen messengers glide clown those awful solitudes ? 
And who or what is it that comprehends all these, 
that presses upon us its decrees, and works its ends, 



80 



CHRIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



and with these bears up our globe of human desti- 
nies, and steers it through this silent sea of space ? 

3. Or, once more, consider that element in which the 
greatness and the mystery of nature and of life are 
represented. What suggestions of the supernatural 
and the unknown rise upon us from the bosom of the 
sea ! What intimations of depths beyond our sight 
and sense in its strange sounds, or still more awful 
silence, in its boundlessness and its beauty ! How 
much nearer are we brought to regions beyond our 
terrestrial scope, when the familiar land fades from 
our sight, and around us there is nothing but those 
unfathomed depths, and heaven above ! What revela- 
tions of pomp, of magnificence, towards which human 
achievements are only an abortive aspiration, when 
this cup of immeasurable waters circles us all 
around, its edge lit with the proclamation of the 
coming sun, or embossed with the setting planets of 
the night ! What a conviction of our impotence, 
our enclosure in the grasp of relentless powers, — be 
they fatal or beneficent, — when the wide gray sweep 
of waters crackles with the tempest, or heaves in 
foam and thunder ! Who wonders that the sailor is 
often a superstitious, but seldom a really irreligious 
man? Might we not expect, that not in the populous 
places of the earth, not even in the wilderness that 
yet stirs with countless form of familiar life, but out 
upon the pathless, solitary deep, might walk some 
messenger from the unknown world, even as Christ, 



CHEIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



81 



in the fourth watch of the night, came walking upon 
the sea? 

But, whatever the occasion, nobody can deny that 
there are occasions when there is awakened in man a 
conviction of powers and realities beyond sense, and 
above nature, at least in the ordinary meaning of 
that term, and nobody can deny that all over the 
world, and in all ages, this conviction has manifested 
itself. The attempt to repress these motions of the 
human soul is as vain as the attempt to repress 
hunger or thirst or thought, or any spontaneous 
operation of man's body or his mind. Hence, what- 
ever may be the assumptions of our day as to religious 
doctrines and forms of faith, such assumptions are to 
be met by the affirmation that man has had and 
always will have some kind of religious doctrine, 
some form of faith. This is not an artificial condi- 
tion of the human race, but a natural tendency, aspir- 
ing to reach beyond the vail, and know something of 
the power that created and controls it. The attitude 
of man towards the supernatural and the unknown 
is the attitude of human need, requiring some expla- 
nation as to what this life of ours is, and as to who 
or what it is that guides and determines all. 

Regarding thus this attitude of human need, in 
the next place there arises the question, What help 
has been found for it? And I may say that two 
answers have come ; one proceeding from the side of 
human sentiment, and the other from human reason. 



82 



CHEIST WALKING OX THE SEA. 



1. One answer elicited in this attitude of human 
need appears in various forms of superstition. It is 
not necessary for me to dwell upon the strange, the 
absurd, the hideous shapes which have been pro- 
jected by the human soul reaching out into infinity, 
and aspiring to hold communion with the unseen. 
Let me remark, however, that even the grossest of 
these superstitions does not present an aspect utterly 
pitiable and absurd. Rock-temples and bloody 
altars, human sacrifices and fetich worship, proclaim 
the fact that our nature does not all gravitate to 
the slime of sense, and the darkness of annihilation. 
Many instances of wretched credulity the philoso- 
pher may accumulate ; but none of these are so 
marvellous as the credulity which accepts the notion 
that all such phenomena are the offspring of foolish 
traditions and priestly cunning, that they are mere 
mists or phantoms of the human brain, artfully 
generated, lighted, and shadowed by the magic lan- 
terns of hypocrites and fools. The superstitious 
sentiment itself needs explanation. The human 
need requires divine help. The premises that have 
led men into the false demand a revelation of the 
true. The soul of man, tossed upon this changeful 
element of life, looking out upon this sea of mystery, 
has discerned something, and " cries out for fear." 

2. Let us, in the next place, consider the answer 
that comes from the side of human reason. What, 
then, has science to say that has a bearing upon the 



CHRIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



83 



attitude of man towards the supernatural and the 
unknown ? It says very wise things and very effec- 
tive things concerning the folly and misery of all 
superstition, It lays its hand upon fact and nature, 
and explodes the fables, the grotesque and ugly tra- 
ditions, that have prevailed for countless generations. 
How beautiful and beneficent have been its offices 
in this way ! What baneful, cruel, and wicked cus- 
toms has it abolished forever ! What a heavy burden 
of fears has it removed ! What light and order 
and peace and progress have followed upon its dis- 
coveries ! What confidence has it inspired in simple 
truth! How forcibly it has taught us to forego 
our flimsy conceits, and rely upon reality ! How 
close the connection it has made known between a 
sound mind and a sound body, and so established 
a gospel of physical righteousness! The telescope, 
the microscope, the spectroscope, the crucible, have 
pierced and shattered and dissolved the upholstery 
of illusions, and laid open to our eyes a universe of 
unexplored wonders, all bound about with a web of 
inflexible yet beneficent laws. " Law," that is the 
answer which science delivers to man, seeking to 
know the things beyond his senses and the powers 
that be, "law, order, and a wondrous transformation 
yet sublime unity of forces.' 5 

And it may be, that, in this revelation of science, 
some things are assailed to which we cling, some 
things seem to dissolve that we supposed were the 



84 



CHBIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



eternal foundations of our faith and our hope. It 
is an age of revolutions, not only on fields of polit- 
ical contest: more silent but mightier than these, 
nay, the subtle and hidden progenitors of these, are 
the revolutions of human thought, the conflicts of 
fact and opinion, of divine truth and man-made 
creeds. Look at the ground-swell of agitation and 
controversy that sweeps not only through minor 
sects, but washes into the venerable courts of estab- 
lished churches, every now and then heaving in 
some notable crest from the professor's chair and the 
bishop's throne. Some venturesome book comes out, 
and presently the sky is darkened with books of criti- 
cism and rejoinder: the press vomits books, the air 
rains books, the shops are deluged with books, each 
and all represented to be an infallible refutation of 
the obnoxious book, which, at the same time, we are 
assured, is too weak to require any refutation, while 
ten thousand pulpits pour in a monotonous chorus to 
the general tune. In the mean time, undisturbed by 
all these surgings of theological antagonism, science 
calmly pursues its researches, and announces its con- 
clusions. Those conclusions, which only report God's 
work and will in nature, we must accept; nor need 
we be alarmed lest a particle of the divine word 
should give way under whatever revelations may be 
made of " the antiquity of man," or " the origin of 
species." Only we must not imagine that our par- 
ticular creed alone will prove to be identical with 



CHRIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



85 



that word, or that our fear is an evidence of our 
faith. There may be a decay of creeds, there never 
will be a decay of religion. And yet these times of 
revolution are anxious times. It is always a fearful 
hour, that twilight of confused beliefs, when old con- 
victions are gliding away, when new convictions have 
not yet clearly dawned. When, looking out upon 
this sea of human speculation, men cannot discern 
what form is advancino- towards them, thev instinct- 
ively cry out for fear. They may mistake the benefi- 
cent manifestation of God's own love and truth, 
the coming of a broader and grander revelation, for 
some spirit of dreadful omen. But, I repeat, let us 
not confound our fear with faith. The discussions 
of the time, growing out of scientific methods, will 
hurt no sacred thing. If every item of the popular 
belief is true, then, when the controversy has passed 
and settled down, that belief will stand all the more 
distinct in its triumph over the keenest criticism ; it 
will be all the more firmly held, because it will be 
more intelligently apprehended. On the other hand, 
if aught imbedded in this popular belief is false, the 
false ingredient alone will dissolve: God's word, 
God's truth, will abide. But in this collision science 
itself must be criticised ; and so I proceed still 
further to ask, what bearing has science upon this 
fact of human need ? How does it satisfy the condi- 
tions of man's attitude towards the supernatural and 
the unknown ? For, if it does not meet and fill this 



86 



CHRIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



unquestionable want, then it is itself found wanting ; 
then we may discover that in its way it is equally 
narrow and equally bigoted with that superstition 
which it has cancelled; then it may be received 
and honored as authentic in its sphere, but that 
sphere is not high enough nor wide enough for the 
compass of the human soul. And such, I think, 
the result will prove. Law, force, order, these 
are sublime facts, but are they enough for human 
nature ? Is this all of which we need to be assured ? 
Can you, by furnishing a scientific explanation of 
the seen, repress man's earnest inquiry about the un- 
seen ? Can you, by a revelation of physical truth, 
satisfy man's moral wants, his homely, and yet how in- 
tense, aspirations and hopes and fears ? Grand is the 
immensity that opens above our heads, — sublimely 
regular those armies of the sky, whose glittering 
march even then as now flashed over Adam's para- 
dise and Abraham's tent. Beautiful is this band of 
nature, that links the meanest to the highest in one 
vast web of sjmipathetic life. Majestic is the law 
whose custom was the same, whose decrees were as 
inflexible, in the geological ages, as in earth and sea 
and sky to-day. Law, force, order, they are stately 
facts, but are they sufficient nourishment for the 
hungering and thirsting soul ? What is the law ? Is 
it cold necessity, or is it love ? Force, has it any 
alliance with our own voluntary impulses, our irre- 
pressible prayers ? Order, is it only the adjustment 



CHRIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



87 



of physical mechanism, or does it intimate a divine 
providence, that carries our humanity in its warm 
and living bosom ? It is useless to preach intellect- 
ual limitation or irresolvable ignorance. Man will 
ask what is it that in all and through all bears con- 
trol; what is it that occupies the unknown? The 
answer of science is not enough for us, tossed on this 
life-sea, and in " the fourth watch of the night." 

Then it was, when the perplexed disciples were 
struggling on the deep, that Jesus went unto them, 
walking on the sea. So to our human need, so 
regarding our spontaneous attitude towards the su- 
pernatural and the unknown, has the revelation in 
Christ come. It has come, not to supersede any 
truth that came before it, or that may come without 
it, but to fulfil all truth. It does not compromise 
between science and superstition, — compromise is not 
the method of truth. It does not utterly cancel 
the dim and distorted conviction that has thrilled 
even in the most fantastic superstition, but recti- 
fies and elevates this conviction. It does not fix the 
seal of reprobation on that which science has made 
known; but it reveals its highest relations, and 
charges its net-work of material laws with spiritual 
purpose. I repeat, it does not cancel the truth of 
science, or the truth that inheres in superstition. 
It does not compromise between them. It sinks 
beneath ; it overflows ; it comprehends the truth of 
both ; and it answers those conditions which they 



88 



CHRIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



have either perverted, or sought to repress. The 
two great questions involved with the supernatural 
and the unknown are " who " and " what." " Who," 
as concerning the Creator and Controller of life and 
nature, the sovereign power that governs the issues 
of our being. To this question superstition replies 
with that dark and terrible view, to which so many 
aspects of the universe lend their coloring ; to this 
question Christianity replies by its personal revela- 
tion of a Father. The question " what " applies to 
human destiny, to the result and purport of this con- 
scious being of ours. As to this, science cannot 
assure us. As to this, Christianity unfolds an endless 
career, lighted by merciful promise and transcendent 
hope. The religion of Jesus, then, affords that divine 
help which is adapted to our human need. This is 
the form, that, in the mysterious conditions of our 
existence, should come to us over the troubled waters 
and through the darkness. There is only one 
voice that is able to say to us, " Be of good cheer, 
be not afraid." Superstition says, " Be afraid." 
Science cannot say, " Be of good cheer." Chris- 
tianity shows us the true ground of fear, the thing 
of which we should be afraid, in the evil of our 
own self-will, the sin of our own hearts. But all 
other fear — fear of that which may come to us from 
beyond these unlifted veils of time and sense — it 
dispels in the revelation of a divine power and a 
divine love, that fills all space, and acts in every 
process of life and nature. 



CHRIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



89 



II. But there is another aspect of things, to which 
I wish to call your attention before I close. We 
have been considering the problems which arise from 
a general view of life and nature, and with which, in 
the discussions of our speculative age, not only the 
question of Christianity, but the question of any 
religion, is involved. In other words, we have been 
considering the attitude of man towards the super- 
natural and the unhioivn. But the point which I 
now touch may be more familiar to us. I ask you, 
then, to consider the attitude of man respecting the 
natural and the known; and here, also, you will 
observe the conditions of human need and divine 
help. 

Eeading the narrative connected with the text, as 
it is unfolded in the different evangelists, we find 
that those men who " cried out for fear " had been 
" toiling in rowing." And, I repeat, this condition 
may come nearer to our experience than the other 
phase of this transaction. We may not be troubled 
with the scientific and religious speculations of the 
age, but we are troubled here amidst the perplexities 
and trials of daily life. In one way or another, no 
doubt, many of us are " toiling in rowing." Some 
of us, perhaps, are engaged in that most strenuous 
and tiresome of all labor, — the toil of pleasure. 
We have no solid aim, no high purpose in life; we 
are in pursuit of bubbles that break at our touch, 
of rainbows that recede as we press on, of islands 



90 



CHRIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



of the blest that for a little while delude our vision, 
and then fade and disappear ; we are drawn hither 
and thither by temptations ; we are driven by surges 
of passion; and, in all this tumult of our inward 
and our outward life, we need some help that can 
calm and deliver our souls, a voice with power to 
say, " Peace, be still ! " 

Or we are rowing through heavy waves of care, 
we are vexed with countless ills, and the wind is 
contrary to us. Whole seas of sorrow, dark and 
cold, are dashing over us. And yet we must toil and 
row ; but we want something to strengthen, to guide, 
and to inspire us. Our human need calls for divine 
help. In seasons of gloom, looking out upon the 
world around us through mists and shadows, perhaps 
we discern objects at which we shudder, forms which 
move us to cry out with fear. That which, coming 
towards us, excites -these fears, may itself be a bless- 
ing ; but we know it not, and we need the divine 
assurance that can bid us be of good cheer. 

Surely our common need, our attitude towards 
even that which is known in our own lives and in the 
world around us, requires such help as this. We 
need something that in every form of our experience, 
in every changeful aspect of life, of nature, of human 
history, can lift us up, and strengthen us with the 
conviction of a divine presence and a divine control. 
We need a voice to cheer us when we " toil in row- 
ing," to assure us when we shrink with fears ; yes, 



CHEIST WALKING ON THE SEA. 



91 



and when at last breaks upon our view that strange, 
mysterious sea "which rolls round all the world," 
then shall we need to discern One like him who of 
old walked on Galilee, One who shall come towards 
us, saying, " It is I ; be not afraid ! " 



CONFORMATION AXD TRANSFORMATION. 



"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by 
the renewing of your mind." — Rom. xii 2. 

IF you will read the verses immediately preceding 
the text, — the closing verses of the eleventh 
chapter of Romans, — you will find a striking illus- 
tration of the comprehensiveness of Christianity, of 
its breadth and range. In those verses the apostle 
lifts us up to the grandest generalization that is to 
be found in the Bible. Contemplating the sweep of 
divine providence, and that interchangeable working 
of God's plan in human destiny, by which, in the 
end. Jew and Gentile are both to be brought in to 
the kingdom of heaven, Paul breaks forth in the sub- 
lime exclamation, " For of him, and through him, 
and to him, are all things : to whom be glory for- 
ever. Amen." 

But in the passage before us, and in the chapter to 
which the text belongs, we are presented with the 
specific or human side of Christianity. Here the 
apostle recedes from his general view, and comes 



CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 93 



down to the individual and personal conditions, out 
of which this grand result is to flow. For although 
there is such a striking distinction between the vast 
operations of the divine plan, and the details of human 
action, these have a vital relation to each other. At 
least, the first verse of this chapter indicates a logical 
connection. "I beseech you therefore," proceeds 
the apostle, — "therefore " as a deduction from what 
has just been said concerning this vast plan of the 
Almighty, — "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by 
the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a 
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is 
vour reasonable service. And be not conformed to 
this world : but be ye transformed by the renewing 
of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, 
and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." 

In one word, the wonderful mercies of God con- 
stitute the basis of Paul's appeal in the chapter 
before us. The burden of that appeal is that we be 
"not conformed to this world, but transformed by 
the. renewing of the mind." The text brings into 
view two antagonistic powers, — on the one hand the 
world, on the other the divine element in the soul 
of man. 

It is hardly necessary to say that this term 
"world" has various meanings in the New Testament. 
One meaning implies time, protracted or continuous 
time ; or it may signify an age, — the Messianic as 
contrasted with the Jewish, or the past as opposed to 



94 CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 

the present or coming age ; or it may mean a state, 
the present or visible in distinction from the future 
and invisible ; or it may indicate the evil principle 
in antagonism with the good. In fact, we make an 
equivalent use of the English word " world," and 
employ it in diverse senses. Sometimes we mean the 
natural or material world, sometimes the present con- 
dition of existence. Again, when we speak of " the 
world," we refer to society, and still again we 
mean by it the dominion of evil within and around 
us. I presume that in the text the word bears, more 
strictly than any other, this latter signification. Or 
we might sum up our definitions by using the term 
" worklliness," meaning thereby a spirit or principle 
of evil, pervading the world in all the senses to 
which I have referred. It is this spirit of worldliness 
that we are to beware of, and to which we must not 
be conformed. And it is evident that this spirit may 
solicit us in all the various forms of what we call 
" the world." It may invite us in the aspects of the 
material universe, or through the conditions of our 
present existence, or in the methods of society, as 
well as by evil suggestions in our own souls. But 
the main point is, that we beware of worldliness as a 
principle of thought and action. We must live in 
accordance with a very different principle : we must 
be " transformed by the renewing of our minds." 

I am thus particular in defining the term " world," 
because I wish to avoid two extremes. On the one 



CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 95 

hand, I am desirous that the fact which it signi- 
fies should not appear to you as a mere abstraction, 
something incidental to those early Christian ages, 
but of which nobody is in danger now. I wish it to 
be understood that "the world," in this evil and 
dangerous sense, is a reality. And while it is true 
that to those primitive Christians there was a literal, 
indeed, an almost total sense, in which "the world" 
was identical with evil, a sense which does not ob- 
tain now, nevertheless, the apostle's exhortation is 
very applicable even at the present time. But, on 
the other hand, I would avoid that exaggeration 
which confounds " the world," in the evil sense, with 
almost every transaction of our lives. Such a con- 
ception is productive of an anxious and morbid state 
of mind, incompatible with the genuine relations of 
life. Or else it overshoots its purpose, and leaves us 
high and dry in religious indifference and practical 
atheism. Exhorted to avoid " the world," to have 
no alliance with " the world," without any discrimi- 
nation of the various senses in which this term is 
used, men feel that they are called to practise that 
which is simply impracticable ; and so, in their daily 
life, they thrust aside the injunction altogether. But 
when we say that the world is to be opposed in the 
sense of a false and evil principle, that really is in 
the world, and is identical with many of its methods 
and ideals, there is clear reason and there is practical 
force in the exhortation, " Be not conformed to this 
world." 



96 



CONFORMATION AND TEANSFOEMATION. 



But now let me proceed to say that we must be 
vigilant against this spirit, precisely where it is the 
most subtle and concealed. For it is hardly neces- 
sary to tell anybody not to be conformed to evil as 
a naked principle, a principle showing itself in undis- 
guised ugliness. If the familiar couplet, — 

" Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen," 

does not declare a practical truth, it is because vice 
never is seen in its essence. It is mixed with some 
element of real or apparent good. It puts on some 
veil of plausibility, although the veil may be very 
thin. And, of course, just in proportion to the splen- 
dor or completeness of the disguise, vice is danger- 
ous: so in regard to worldliness ; as a naked princi- 
ple, hindering whatever is good, and opposing what- 
ever is true, it does not appear. But it insinuates 
itself through some good and true thing. Thus, for 
instance, it may easily become confounded with the 
love of nature. We may say that delight in the vis- 
ible world is a legitimate delight. Surely, this is 
not the world against which the apostle warns us, 
this animated sphere of nature, which God himself 
has called into being, and kindled with glory. No, 
this array of earth and sky, and all that in them is. 
does not constitute that evil world to which we must 
not be conformed. But let us present the case from 
another point of view. Suppose that this world of 



CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 97 



nature becomes to us all in all. Suppose it hides 
from our eyes the real cause and object of nature, 
and cheats us into the belief that material things are 
the whole of things, and that there is nothing higher 
and better than that which serves our senses. There 
are those to whom nature virtually does become all 
this ; and when this is the result, then has the spirit 
of wordliness become confounded with love of the 
natural world, and we need to be transformed by the 
renewing of the mind. 

Or consider the relations which exist between 
ourselves and our fellow-men. We say, indisputably, 
that we ought to love our fellow-men. We are not 
required by any law of God, or of our own spiritual 
welfare, to cut ourselves loose from domestic attach- 
ments or social communion. The example of Jesus 
teaches and shows us how to consort with men. 
Indeed, the truth contained in these assertions at 
once puts on the majestic aspect of a duty. But all 
the more perilous is our position, when with this 
communion with our fellows, with this love for our 
friends and our neighbors, there blends an influence 
that moves us to defer to their customs, to yield to 
their opinions, to see only through their moral atmos- 
phere, and live merely upon the level of their ideals. 
In these conditions society may become that "world" 
to which we must not be conformed, but which only 
they can rise above and resist who are transformed 
by the renewing of the mind. 



98 CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 

Nay, our most spiritual conceptions, our most 
exalted motives, may become entangled with this 
subtle spirit of worldliness, even when we think we 
have renounced the dominion of this world forever. 
Even our religion may be worldly in its spirit, may 
be what has been aptly termed " other-worldliness." 
The objects of our faith in another state of existence 
may be as sensuous as the objects of our sight are 
here. The grounds of our obedience to God's law 
may be as selfish or mercenary as the motives of the 
miser, the sensualist, or the politician. I fear there 
are some whose religion is little better than service 
for hire ; who regard heaven as the fulfilment of a 
promise to pay, and apply the standards of the mar- 
ket to the New Jerusalem. 

" The world," then, in the evil sense of the term, 
is a spirit, that is everywhere around us and within 
us. It creeps into all sorts of shells ; it is disguised 
under all sorts of names. I say, therefore, once 
more, that the injunction contained in the text is 
most needed, precisely where this spirit is most likely 
to be confounded with something that is good and 
true. Now, proceeding upon this assumption, I 
hardly know of a more interesting and important 
test than that which we may apply to the forms and 
achievements of our modern civilization. For hardly 
anywhere else can we find so many good and true 
elements, among which this spirit may insinuate 
itself. I need not enlarge upon the greatness and 



CONFORMATION AND TBANSFOPwMATIOX. 99 



the excellence which appear in all this movement, 
— the glories of enterprise, the marvels of art, the 
conquests of science, the improvements in laws and 
governments, and the material conditions of men. 
Nor need I say how much of this is the work of 
Christianity itself, and how much of it serves the 
purpose of Christianity. But the point is just here; 
that, if our civilization is so great and so glorious, it 
is precisely among the elements of our civilization 
that we may expect to find the spirit of worldliness, 
with its most subtle and potent influences. Admit- 
ting the vast preponderance of good, let us see what 
there is in these results that indicates an influence 
contrary to that which is wrought by Christianity. 
Regarding these we may detect the difference be- 
tween Christian methods, and methods of the world. 

I. In the first place, then, we may assert that 
much of our modern civilization is a process of con- 
formation. And in this fact consists much of the 
glory of our modern civilization. In an unqualified 
sense, man is not the master of nature. I mean by 
this, that he does not perform his great achievements 
by the mere exercise of his will, but through a pro- 
cess of humble pupilage. He learns to control the 
forces of the material world by submitting to its 
laws. His triumphs of art and mechanism are sim- 
ply a conformity to nature, a working with nature, 
not a mastery over it. For all the work that nature 
does, man pays in patient study and scrupulous 



100 CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 



obedience. Thus lie mitigates pain and conquers 
disease, by discovering and conforming to the laws 
of health. He learns to use the lightning and make 
it talk for him, by conforming to the requirements of 
that mysterious element which pervades the earth 
and the sky. Let there be the least infraction, to the 
amount only of a pin's point, and his power in this 
direction is gone. He has no wand of miracle to su- 
persede law\ He must patiently trace out the break 
in his process, and repair the transgression. And so, 
throughout the entire circle of achievement, civiliza- 
tion is conformation. It is the adjustment of man to 
the conditions in which he is placed, to the order of the 
present world. Now, I saj^ that precisely here, where 
so much good is involved, and whence so much good 
unquestionably comes, we may detect an evil ten- 
dency. Man may be seduced into the belief that not 
merely great good, but that his only good, is to be 
gained by conformity. He may forget that there 
are elements in the world which he should defy, and 
look beyond, even though he cannot control them. 
It is well to keep vividly in mind the fact, that in 
the human soul there is something greater than all. 
material forces, better than wealth, or ease, or worldly 
achievement. In this universe there are laws which 
are sublimer than physical laws, and results grander 
even than our mortal life. There is danger lest this 
habit of conformity, which is so characteristic of our 
modern civilization, fasten us down to a mere worldly 



CONFOBMATION AND TEAXSFOHXATIO^. 101 



level, and saturate all our desires with worldly 
estimates. 

The great peculiarity of our social achievements, 
then, is conformation. On the other hand, the great 
peculiarity of the Christian method is transformation, 
— not simply obedience to physical laws and external 
conditions, but a renewing of the mind. It is a 
great achievement for man to control new forces 
■without : it is a greater achievement for him to unfold 
new forces wit/tin. It is a great result, when in this 
theatre of worldly action he does more ; but it is a 
greater result when among all these elements of good 
and evil he himself becomes more. It is a great result, 
when in the inmost recesses of his beings there unfolds 
a law which forbids all sin, even under the mask of 
the most splendid gain ; when there is awakened a 
vitality of conscience, which inspires him to make 
only a beneficent application of mighty instruments, 
and makes it impossible for him to put them to base 
uses ; when there settles in his soul a sublime patience, 
by which if he cannot conquer pain he can bear it ; 
and when in the midst of all physical terrors he enjoys 
a spiritual vision, which pierces through calamity and 
looks beyond death. When one is brought to such 
a result, there is no danger from that spirit of world- 
liness which lurks in the habit of conformity. There 
have been those who have thus stood above the level 
of worldly circumstance, and who have spanned all 
its good with a calculus broad as the eternal heaven. 



102 CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 



Doubtless such men there were to whom these very 
words of the apostle were addressed. — men right in 
the centre and capital of heathenism, surrounded by 
every shape of human error and conceit. And 
although those shapes may have been little more 
than the glittering veils of dead conviction, the 
pomps and processions of a power that was fast 
vanishing from the earth, still, by the superstition of 
the multitude, the connivance of the philosophers, 
and the policy of the State, heathenism was in alli- 
ance with the passions, the inclinations, and the 
power of the world. The early Christian at Rome 
had to maintain his trust against this strong current 
of opinions and feelings, against the temptations of 
desire and the temptations of fear. And we know 
how he did maintain that trust. History is eloquent 
with the living illustration and the bloodv testimony 
of those who were " not conformed to this world, 
but transformed by the renewing of the mind." With 
all the good that we may gain from the method of 
conformation^ would it not be well if, in the souls and 
the lives of men, there were more of the fruit that 
comes from transformation ? 

II. Let us, however, proceed to consider two or 
three points, where the contrasts between the Chris- 
tian method and the methods of this world are more 
especially displayed. Observe, then, how largely men 
are influenced by excitement. It might be instructive 
for any man to ask himself how much of his life is 



CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 103 



the product of external pressure rather than inward 
resolution ; to ask himself how much he drifts with 
the current, and is carried by the winds, instead of 
keeping his own course by determined purpose of 
heart and soul. There is a vast difference between 
the noble steamship that holds its way, trampling the 
waves and challenging the gale, because it has an 
inward force, an iron heart, and breath of vital flame, 
— there is a vast difference between this and the poor 
vessel whose iron heart stands still, and that wallows 
about a charred and melancholy wreck, the sport and 
victim of the relentless sea. But there may be a 
difference as great between the man who cherishes 
the steady light of reason and conscience in his own 
soul, and by these determines his action, and the man 
who is perpetually driven by the excitements of time 
and place. And this tendency is much enhanced 
by the elements of our civilization. How many peo- 
ple depend upon excitements as the spring of their 
chief delight, as the aliment of their very being! 
In this great city, through which the currents of the 
world are ever rushing to and fro, what is the pro- 
portion of men who find food in their own thoughts, 
and draw comfort from calm fountains in their own 
souls ? How many are there who live merely in a 
newspaper and telegraph world? They are always 
whirling in the commotion of something new ; the 
very breath of their life, as it were, comes panting 
from the steam-engine, and their nerves are strung 



104 CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 



on the electric wire. Thus thousands are swept by 
action, while comparatively few are inspired by ideas ; 
thus there are a great many thoughts, and but little 
thinking; thus there is an amount of diffused infor- 
mation out of all proportion to depths of real knowl- 
edge ; thus many of our social results that look like 
solid bullion are only electrotj^ped tin. And thus 
people, carried out of themselves by the force of ex- 
ternal excitement, lose true independence of thought 
and life. Opinions and habits go with the tide. 
These men and women live as others live, think as 
others think, do as others do, and practically adopt 
the conclusion that one might as well be crammed 
into a catacomb, or stuck in a rnunin^-case, as be out 
of the fashion. Thus we have social epidemics, — 
epidemics of crime, and epidemics of moral reform ; 
epidemics, or perhaps we must say chronic instances, 
of municipal corruption, and epidemics of mob law. 
We get severely bitten with the mania of extrava- 
gance ; and then comes a financial turn, when it is 
the fashion to fail. Nay, even religion may become 
too closely identified with mere excitement. For a 
season, perhaps, it is manifested in a grand choral 
burst of devotion ; but, when the gust of emotion is 
over, how much remains of deep, sweet, vital con- 
sciousness, — a power of the individual life that 
unfolds its own visions, and makes songs for the soli- 
tary soul, as with John at Patmos, as with Paul in 
the dungeon at Philippi ? 



CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 105 



Now, we may say that these tendencies have always 
been developed in the movements of society, and are 
inseparable from progress ; but I need not tell you 
how much there is in our modern civilization to mul- 
tiply and intensify these tendencies. I do not over- 
look the vast amount of benefit conferred by these 
facilities of our age, but all the more vigilantly must 
we guard against the danger involved with them. 
It is easy to see how by external pressure a man may 
be carried off his own feet, lose his sense of indi- 
vidual accountability, break down in his moral per- 
sonality, and, in short, driven to the last results of 
this influence, become like the charred and wave- 
washed vessel of which I spoke. 

The method of Christianity is not excitement, but 
incitement. That man is best qualified for the perils, 
yet not disqualified for the blessings, of the world 
around him, who is moved, not by pressure from 
without, but by principle from within, and who in the 
midst of these changing tendencies holds a purpose ; 
a man whose personality does not dissolve in the 
social atmosphere around him, but who preserves a 
rocky identity of faith and conviction, a moral loy- 
alty to his own ideal; a man whose good is not 
fitful, whose very faults are not from fashion, and 
who amidst the veering and flawing of worldly winds 
moves steadily on, borne by " the breath and venti- 
lation of God's own Spirit/' A man like this aims 
not to seem but to be, and cares little what social 



106 CONFOBMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 



stamp lie bears, in comparison to his consciousness 
of God's approving signet within. And such men 
are the fruits, not merely of civilization in its mighty 
force of excitement, but of Christianity with its 
incitement, which, in other words, is a renewing of 
the mind. 

III. Again, the power of our modern civilization 
is the power of that which is visible and tangible: 
the power of Christianity is the power of the unseen 
and the spiritual. Present good, present gain, im- 
mediate success, these are the conspicuous results of 
our institutions and instruments, our inventions and 
discoveries, our laws and governments, and trade 
and commerce. What vast sovereignty, what subtle 
temptation, in this possession of the present, in that 
visible dollar which I make by my compliance, com- 
pared with the inward blessing which follows my 
sacrifice ; in the concrete fact which I can grasp in 
my hand, or describe in a title-deed, compared with 
the abstraction which I do not see, and that only 
flits in transient vision before my inward eye ! Some 
of the grandest achievements of modern civilization 
are achievements for the present world and the 
present time. Quicker realization, more rapid results, 
are powerful incentives in all this movement. Can- 
cel space, outstrip time, bridge oceans with steam 
until they shall seem like rivers, twitch nations 
together with electric arteries until each can feel the 
other's breath ! Let us have concrete good, let us 



CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 107 

have immediate acquisition ! If some subtle force 
has been plucked from the secret cabinet of nature, 
let it be precipitated at once in a salable commodity ; 
harness it to some use, set it to driving the wheels 
of progress ! Ours is a famous civilization for real- 
izing : it contrives to make principles pay; it 
combines dollars with doctrines, and profits with 
purification. 

You perceive that I recognize not only the benefi- 
cent elements of civilization, but also the working of 
the spirit of the world among these elements; and 
that, while some of its achievements necessarily and 
nobly appear in immediate and concrete results, this 
very process carries with it the peril of absorption in 
immediate estimates : thus we are led to take for our 
standards of profit and loss merely sensuous and 
worldly standards. 

Now, no instructed and reasonable Christian, and 
one can hardly be a genuine Christian who is not 
instructed and reasonable, undervalues concrete facts 
and interests. Indeed, he is in the most favorable 
position for rightly appreciating these. The man 
who starts from great principles, and who pays due 
regard to abstractions, is not one who is most apt to 
overlook the real interests of the world. It is a 
mistake to suppose that fanatics are men who are 
especially devoted to abstractions. The truth is, that 
fanatics do not regard abstractions ; they do not sur- 
vey principles in their comprehensive sweep, but mix 



103 COiOrOBMATION AND TEAXSrOHMATIOX. 



their own conceits with concrete facts. I repeat, no 
true Christian undervalues the real good of the 
world. But he also regards a higher good. He be- 
lieves that for the real purposes of this life, as well as 
of all life, we need something besides steam and tele- 
graph, and currency and ballot-boxes. We need to 
be transformed by the renewing of the mind. We 
need the Christian method, that sways the souls of 
men and the spirit of nations, by a power superior 
to that which is visible and tangible. We need that 
which delivers man from sensual illusion and the lust 
of immediate attainment, by fixing his eyes upon the 
glory of spiritual rectitude, the victory of postpone- 
ment, and the gain of sacrifice. Who doubts that 
we need to-day the same spirit as that which of old 
led men to abandon houses, and lands, and all earthly 
good, for God's truth, and the advancement of his 
kingdom ? I do not say that this is always literally 
required of us ; but I do say we need that clear and 
loyal recognition of eternal realities which would 
make us ready to do this. And if this seems strange, 
old-time, Judaean doctrine, such strangeness only 
proves how the gospel according to the Xew Testa- 
ment differs from the gospel according to the nine- 
teenth century. It only shows how the noblest 
elements may yet be lacking in our civilization. 

IV. Once more, I observe that civilization pro- 
duces its most marked effect without, while the Chris- 
tian element works within. So far as the manner of 



CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION, 109 



working is concerned, the suggestions arising under 
this head have been anticipated, in my remarks con- 
cerning excitement and incitement. I speak now, 
however, not of methods, but of products, of conse- 
quences. The best thing accomplished by civiliza- 
tion, in the ordinary definition of that term, is 
adjustment to the world. The tests and fruits of 
civilization are better outward conditions, a better 
social state, better houses and lands and means of 
communication : its proof appears in a law or a 
machine or an institution. And in all this we may 
discern the legitimate working 1 of Christianity. It 
bids us do all this, and enjoy all this ; make the 
most of it, but above all make the best of it. Nev- 
ertheless, it is only the most familiar of truisms, to 
say that man's life is not merely in outward things. 
Nay, his real life is not in outward things at all. 
New forces may leap from the womb of nature. We 
may acquire more materials of comfort, and instru- 
ments of progress. But the substance of human per- 
sonality does not change. It cannot be changed 
merely by these external agents. In its joys and 
sorrows, its good and evil, its wants and capacities, 
it is the same as it was six thousand years ago. 
Strip the man of the nineteenth century of these 
externals, and how much is he like the man of ages 
since ! With the telescope we see farther, but do we 
really see more, than Abraham at the door of his tent, 
or Job gazing upon the Pleiades ? If we do, then it 



110 CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 

may be affirmed that whatever of larger vision or 
substantial good has come to us has come within. It 
has come in more comprehensive truth, in a broader 
and more consecrated love, in more perfect assurance 
of permanent and final good. And, wherever these 
results are wrought within us, we can dispense with 
much that is merely outward and palpable. The 
Christian method, then, is superior to the world, in 
the fact that it renews the mind, enlarges it, fills it, 
and opens within springs of enduring peace and 
power. 

Nay, it would be easy to show how all genuine 
outward progress comes from the renewing of the 
mind; that all beneficent revolutions, all radical 
improvements, are wrought by forces of human 
thought and purpose ; that the great, new issues of 
the world require new men. It is, however, enough 
to be assured that what we are, what we receive and 
hold within, is the essential consequence. Let us, 
then, not be deluded by the spirit of the world, so 
strong and so victorious in our day, to imagine that 
any radical good or gain is outward good or gain. 
Let us remember that the essential fact is the man 
himself, not his circumstances. Faith, patience, 
love, the mind of Jesus, pray for these, strive for 
these ; and gaining these, holding these, let us do 
what we can for the world around us, carrying into 
it the force of these elements in which is fulfilled the 
end of our own true inward being. Yet the time 



CONFORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION. Ill 



comes when the world to us will be as nothing. But 
while it recedes, crumbles, slips, fades away, we shall 
not fail. We shall perish with no perishing thing, 
being " not conformed to this world, but transformed 
by the renewing of the mind." 



VII. 



JOHN AND HEROD. 

"It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead." — 
Mark vi. 16. 

THESE were the words of Herod Antipas, son of 
Herod the Great, who, smitten with a guilty- 
passion for the wife of his brother Philip, persuaded 
her to abandon her disinherited husband, for the 
honors of a court, and the rank of a reigning prin- 
cess. The intrinsic guiltiness of this act was ex- 
pressed in a double wrong. Not only had Herodias 
forsaken Philip, but, for her sake, Antipas had repu- 
diated his own wife. I fear that in human history 
we might frequently find parallels for this trans- 
action, and instances as conspicuously stamped with 
shame. But surely such sin in high places has not 
always encountered such direct and fearless rebuke. 
However, in those times, there was one man, — a 
man who in deserts and solitary places had been 
trained to hear the call of duty, and to obey the 
voice of God, — there was one man who dared con- 
front even that lawless despotism. " It is not lawful 
112 



JOHN AND HEROD. 



113 



for thee to have her," said John the Baptist. The 
utterance of that truth discharged his conscience, 
but it cost him his head. Yet there are some men 
who had rather be without a head than without a 
conscience; and John was one of this kind. He 
had offended a sovereign, and that was a dan- 
gerous thing to do. But he had done what was 
much more dangerous, — he had aroused the anger 
of a vindictive woman. The passage that follows 
the text presents a most vivid picture. Indeed, I 
hardly know where to look for an incident in which 
the elements of evil, — sensuality, crime, cruelty — 
are more strikingly combined. There appears a 
weak, voluptuous king, impelled by his passions, yet 
awed by a vague sense of right ; now listening to 
the incitements of his paramour; now restrained 
by fear of the people ; now influenced by a sort of 
moral respect for the bold preacher whom he had 
imprisoned. Then there are the occasion for ven- 
geance, artfully seized upon, the triumph of a 
dancing-girl, the drunken and applauding crowd, 
the oath passed in haste and fulfilled in cowardice, 
and, as it seems likely within the very same walls, 
a festival and a tragedy, the mixing of wine and 
blood. Above, the dainties and the revelry ; below, 
the martyr, pale and gory ; while, behind all, work- 
ing through all, appears the worst thing that can be 
found in the whole world, — a wicked woman. 

These transactions present for our consideration 
two points : — 



114 



JOHN AND HEKOD. 



I. A self-revelation. 
II. A contrast. 

I. The text, with a single stroke, lays open before 
us the mind of Herod. After the death of John the 
Baptist, the fame of Jesus spread abroad ; and, as 
might be expected, the minds of the people were 
much excited concerning him. Some said that this 
extraordinary teacher, this doer of mighty works, 
was Elijah returned to earth again. Others, not so 
certain as to his personality, said that Jesus was one 
of the old prophets. But Herod exclaimed, " It is 
John, whom I beheaded : he is risen from the dead." 
Thus, then, did he betray the guilty remembrance 
that haunted his soul. In this exclamation we have 
a truth of human nature, a truth which Shakspeare 
has put in the mouth of the murderer of Banquo : — 

u Now they rise again, 
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, 
And pnsh us from our stools," — 

a truth which often starts out from the depths of the 
human soul, — the truth of conscience. 

The question as to Herod's opinions about a 
future state, or at least the opinions which he may 
have professed, whether he was a Sadducee and dis- 
believed in the resurrection, or was a Pharisee and 
believed in it, so far as the present instance is con- 



JOHN AND HEKOD. 



115 



cerned, is of little importance. Deeper than mere 
speculation, below all the apathy of worldliness, 
there exists in man some conviction of spiritual 
reality and of moral obligation. This betrayed itself 
in Herod the moment his nature was jarred by the 
shock of extraordinary circumstances. Xhe awe of 
Christ's marvellous works awoke the solemnities of 
even that debased nature. Deep called unto deep. 
The vibration of miraculous power brought up the 
secret shapes of conscience, as it is said the vibration 
of cannon will bring drowned men to the surface of 
the water. The form of the murdered Baptist that 
lay mutilated in the dungeon of Machaerus, that was 
taken up and buried by his sorrowing disciples, was 
yet all alive, was yet all unburied, in the recesses of 
that guilty consciousness. Turning to the Gospel 
of Luke, we find that the statement concerning this 
point differs from the statement in Matthew and in 
Mark. In Luke, instead of the exclamation recorded 
in the text, Herod is represented as saying, " John 
have I beheaded: but who is this?" as though he 
did not for a moment entertain the thought of its 
being John. But this is quite consistent with the 
assertion before us. On the one hand, Herod may 
have first put the question, " Who is this ? " until 
that question dissolved in the fearful thought, " It is 
John ; " or, on the other hand, as the first impulse, he 
may have exclaimed, "It is John;" and then, as an 
after-thought, or bracing himself with sceptical hardi- 



116 JOHN AXD HEROD. 

hood, he may have added, " John have I beheaded : 
but who is this ? " In either case, whether fore- 
thought or afterthought, the words of the text are 
equally significant as a self-revelation of Herod. 

Yes, it was all there, — the sense of a deeper and 
more awful world than this material one in which we 
stand ; the sense of responsibility, which no degree of 
depravity can entirely smother, which headlong self- 
will cannot forever elude. A prevalent unbelief 
may have hung darkly around the tetrarch's mind : 
the lights of revelry, the schemes of ambition, the 
tumult of passions, may, as habitual influences, have 
dispelled all shapes of gloom and ill. But there 
were times when the lights burned low, and flickered 
in their sockets; when the curtains of his throne, 
when the upholstery of his very life, flapped in the 
wind of eternity ; and he felt the crust of the world 
breaking away from his own soul, and for a moment 
realized his moral relations, and caught a glimpse of 
the presence of God. A genuine confession broke 
forth in those quick words : " It is John, whom I 
beheaded: he is risen from the dead." 

Yes, it was all there, — the same mysterious sub- 
stance of nature, the same spiritual consciousness, in 
Herod the Tetrarch, as in John the Baptist, — in any 
other man as in Herod the Tetrarch. It is a solemn 
fact, that it is from the same ground and root of 
action that all men start. That which most dis- 
tinguishes men from all other creatures : that which, 



JOHN AND HEROD. 



117 



with all their diversities, still makes them most alike, 
— is the sense of right and wrong, — the feeling, 
although it may be a very vague one, of their relation 
to unseen realities. In no sense can we regard even 
the most degraded man as a mere animal. In the 
grossest forms of excess, which it is injustice to the 
brute to call " beastly," there broods the shadow of 
an awful desecration, of fine gold tarnished, of a glori- 
ous inheritance profanely cast away. In crime, in 
vice, in reckless self-abasement, in meanness of all 
sorts, we always contrast actualities with possibilities ; 
powers possessed, with ends achieved. " What he 
might have been," " What he ought to be," is the sol- 
emn consideration that leaps into our minds as we 
stand before the self-abused victim of appetite and 
passion. A majesty far above the brute appears even 
in this transformation of grossness. There is a glory 
set in humanity, there is the image of God, even in 
the form that lies prostrate in the dust. Let the 
foul exhalations of sin be for a moment blown aside, 
and we might see the far deep heaven of that immor- 
tal nature with its coronet of stars. I cannot think 
that this is extravagant language concerning any 
man, when I mark the solicitude with which Christ 
" came to seek and to save the lost ; " thus, even in 
lost humanity, discerning something worth saving; 
assuring us that the angels rejoice at its recovery 
with the joy of the woman who discovers her lost 
piece of silver; with the joy of the shepherd who 



118 JOHN AND HEKOD. 

finds his lost sheep, and brings it home upon his 
shoulders. I see that the great event in the career 
of the prodigal, the point of moral recovery, was 
" when he came to himself. Therefore, I infer that 
in every man there is a self to come to ; there is 
some noble element holding of that which is spiritual 
and eternal, often sunk like treasure in the depths, 
but not beyond recovery ; like Herod's consciousness 
of spiritual things, buried under thick deposits of 
sensuality, benumbed by practical atheism, yet at 
times starting to the surface, as when he cried out, 
" It is John, whom I beheaded : he is risen from the 
dead ! " 

Now, this spiritual substance, in which man differs 
widely from all other creatures, and in which all 
men are most alike, is both a point of recovery and 
a ground of condemnation. I say, in the first place, 
this is a point of recovery. It is something very 
different from mere platitudes about " the dignity 
of human nature," or a weak emotion that baptizes 
saints and sinners with an indiscriminate sentimen- 
talism : it is something very different from this, that 
asserts the moral possibility of all men through the 
agency of their spiritual consciousness. In the case 
of the vilest and most unrelenting, we have a right 
to affirm this spark of hope, this vital germ shoot- 
ing up through the darkness of their nature, which 
proclaims their alliance with something nobler than 
flesh or sense ; which appears whenever conscience 



JOHN AND HEROD, 



119 



manifests itself, or the soul confesses the presence 
of eternal realities. In the worst man, — though his 
nature, like Herod's, be enslaved to passion, though 
his hand, like Herod's, be stained with blood, — 
there is this profound relation to spiritual things. 
In some way they are acknowledged. And, how- 
ever vile the man may be, it is a sign of hope and 
a point of recovery. 

But this spiritual consciousness is also a ground 
of condemnation. They make a capital mistake who 
suppose, that, by disparaging human nature, they 
enhance the fearfulness of human guilt. Responsi- 
bilities are in proportion to capabilities. In the 
reckoning for talents used, we rate as a decisive 
element the amount of talents possessed. The depth 
of a man's fall must be measured by the dignity 
of his original position. Just in proportion as he 
was originally and essentially bad, he has not fallen. 
Argue the abstract point as we may, we cannot 
brand with the same mark of guilt the vagrant 
boy whose faculties have unfolded in the foulest 
atmosphere of vice and crime, the abandoned girl 
whose plunge into shame was impelled by hunger 
and despair, — we cannot apply the same brand of 
guilt to these as to the man, who, in spite of strong 
moral promptings and clear intellectual light, has 
chosen the evil course, and wrought with abomin- 
able means. Oh ! it is in high places, in circles of 
ambition and of pride, where men sell justice for 



120 



JOHX AND HEKOD. 



gold, and their country for a mess of pottage, and 
rate principle by tlie price-current ; it is in homes of 
luxury, and saloons of gilded pomp, amidst refine- 
ment and ceremony, where women of little prin- 
ciple and wicked will, the Herodiases of fashionable 
life, desecrate household sanctities, and break laws 
that are both human and divine. It is here, among 
the flaunting roses and dahlias of the social world, 
that guilt shows its real blackness, and sin utters its 
condemnation, but not where the poor desecrated hu- 
man flower is wilting in the street, or the miserable 
weed lies rotting by the wall. 

And if thus we estimate individual men and 
women as guilty according to the measure of their 
intelligence and capacity, such must be our esti- 
mate concerning the race as a whole. Therefore, 
the real ground of condemnation is in those very 
elements, which, as I have just shown, constitute a 
sign of hope and a point of recovery. The ground 
of condemnation is in that knowledge of good and 
evil, that intense recognition of spiritual things, 
which broke out in the exclamation of Herod : it 
is in that power of choice, which, exerted this way 
or exerted that way, either delivers us from tempta- 
tion, or leads us into evil- 
Is not that, then, a wonderful lesson gleaming out 
in the Gospel record, — a master-stroke of truthful- 
ness, very suggestive for ourselves and for all men, — 
this confession of conscience on the part of Herod ; 



JOHN AXD IIEEOD. 



121 



this unguarded opening into the secret chambers of 
his soul ; this sudden outcry from the inner depths, 
"It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from 
the dead " ? Let no man delude himself, by any 
manner of sophistry, with the notion that the evil 
of his guilt ends with the guilty act, or that the 
wrong which he has clone lies buried in his memory 
as in a grave. It may lie as in a grave : but there 
will be trumpet-blasts of resurrection, when con- 
science calls, and memory gives up its dead. "Con- 
fessions of faith," so called, may be sincere, or they 
may be heartless and formal. Yet the most genuine 
confessions of faith are not expressed in any creed 
or catechism, but in utterances of the moment, that 
come right out of the heart. So Herod made his 
confession of faith. So might any man be startled 
by his own self-revelation. 

II. But the text also suggests a point of contrast. 
The contrast is between Herod, and John whom he 
beheaded. Here are two different types of men, — 
a type of worldliness, and a type of moral heroism. 
Two different types of men: and j^et let it not be 
considered a mere play upon words, when I say not 
two types of different men. For, as we have just 
seen, these two characters started from a common 
ground. Beneath all external and all moral con- 
trasts lay the same essential humanity. The 
self-willed and voluptuous king was forced to 
acknowledge the same spiritual realities as those 
in reference to which John so steadfastly acted. 



122 



JOHN AND HEEOD. 



But starting from this common root, see how unlike 
these two men were in the branching of their lives. 
Herod, I repeat, is a type of worldliness. In the first 
place, he illustrates the sensuality of the world, the 
imperious domination of appetite and passion. The 
face of the tetrarch of Galilee passes before us at 
this day, in the face of hundreds inflamed by excess, 
— the exuberance of the animal usurping the regal 
front of the man. He comes before us in men whose 
lives are license, and who treat the world as a mere 
garden of the senses ; who obey only the impulse of 
the hour, careless of any restriction and of any law. 
Men who doubtless have the talent of a soul, but 
they wrap it in an epicurean napkin ; so when by 
and by God calls for it, it is only a collapsed soul, 
with smothered possibilities, or a soul with the clods 
of corruption clinging to it. These men are not 
without a dim perception of better things lying about 
somewhere in the universe. Many of them have 
even a sort of muddled respect for religion, or at 
least for religious truth. I think it one of the most 
striking traits in the passage before us, that, despot, 
sensualist, and perhaps Saclducee, as he was, Herod 
" feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an 
holy, and observed him ; and when he heard him, he 
did many things, and heard him gladly." Undoubt- 
edly these men know that there is something far bet- 
ter than their own lives ; and, when it comes along, 
they confess its presence. Certain great realities of 



JOHN AND HEEOD. 



123 



existence for a moment flicker in solemn splendor 
upon their souls ; as, for a moment, a star casts 
its image quivering upon the surface of a stagnant 
pool. 

And I put in another qualification here. Some 
of these may really be better men than those 
whose outward life is perhaps cleaner. There is 
more hope that something good may come out of 
such as these, than out of some smooth, leopard- 
skinned formalist, who never did an illegal thing, and 
never cherished a noble one. You know what Jesus 
said to some of the priests and politicians of his time : 
" Verily, I say unto you, that the publicans and har- 
lots go into the kingdom of God before you." I can- 
not believe that the worldling, so far as he is merely 
a sensualist, is utterly steeled against better influ- 
ences. There may be some grain of purity in his 
heart. Death, for a moment, casts upon him the 
shadow of its moral, and at* times he listens respect- 
fully to divine truth. For the occasion he is inclined 
to do " many things." But, after all, these are the 
mere instruments of impulse, the floats of appetite. 
Thus the man who an hour ago was so grave at 
church or funeral, an hour hence may be venting pro- 
faneness or reeking in debauch. Appetite and pas- 
sion ruled Herod ; and, when the divine law thwart- 
ed these, they proved too strong for any impulse 
of conscience, and the fearless prophet lost his 
head. 



124 



JOHN AND HEROD. 



But there appears in Herod another phase of 
worldliness, — the phase of policy, I do not mean 
wise policy, but policy divorced from principle. 
Herod had no honest independence : he vacillated 
with the wind. He feared the people, and so he did 
not put John to death. But then, again, he feared 
his companions who heard the oath that he made to 
Salome : and he did put John to death. Left to him- 
self, perhaps he would have spared the Baptist, and 
even released him. But his subservience to his 
wicked wife, his wish to appear consistent, if not his 
own inclinations, moved him to act as he did, — to 
imprison a brave man, and to shed the blood of an 
innocent man. just because that man lrad spoken the 
truth. 

Now, I suppose there are a great many such men 
in our day. — men who. on the whole, are disposed to 
honor truth, to eulogize it. even to put it foremost, 
if just as well for themselves. But they would 
imprison it. behead it. and send the desecrated head 
around in a charger, if they could gain votes or get 
pleasure by doing so. With these men there is one 
difficulty, and it is a huge difficulty. They appar- 
ently have no core to their hearts, and you cannot 
tell whether they are sincere or not. For instance, 
they profess public virtue, but it is a virtue for the 
time : it is like a counter, and moves with the game. 
At least, we can have but little confidence concern- 
ing such people, so long as we feel that their method 



JOHN AND HEEOD. 



125 



is not principle, but policy. As to a mere sensualist, 
we can make some calculation. He is tolerably sin- 
cere. He is sincerely vicious. This or that vice is 
his ideal, and he sticks to it. But as to the man 
of policy, one cannot tell whether he even sincerely 
serves the devil. One thing, however, we may confi- 
dently assume, — whether such men profess religion, 
or patriotism, or love of the people, or any thing else, 
they are sincere in serving themselves. 

Herocl was "sorry" when Salome asked for the 
head of John. But " sorry " for what? Was it on 
account of respect and love for the prophet ? or was 
he sorry because he feared popular indignation ? or 
because he felt that this was going a little too far 
in cruelty and injustice ? Men are sorry in various 
ways. One is sorry for his sins, and another is sorry 
for his scruples. One is sorry that he made a fraudu- 
lent profit, and another is sorry that he did not. 
One, with strong anguish, mourns the loss of a 
friend, and another the loss of a fortune. One sheds 
drops of pity, and one of mortification. The mother 
is sorry for her dead babe that lies upon her breast 
like a withered blossom, and the miser is sorry to part 
with a dollar. Sorrow is not always divine, and 
tears are not always of the kind that consecrate. In 
Herod's case it is quite significant that we cannot 
exactly tell why he was sorry. One thing we know, 
that his sorrow was not strong enough to stop 
the hand of the executioner, and keep himself from 



126 



JOHN AND HEROD. 



crime. It was not strong enough to resist the sense 
of shame, and the impulse of the hour. 

Moreover, Herod was obedient to a false code of 
honor. " For his oath's sake, and for the sake of 
them that sat with him," he commanded that John 
should be beheaded. It is a question whether the 
oath alone would have been regarded by him. But 
a bad promise, coupled with the fact that others had 
heard it, was strong enough. To make such an oath 
was bad ; to keep it was twice bad. Yet there are 
strange paradoxes in this world. There are men 
w r hose reputation for "honor" is based upon their 
dogged faithfulness in doing mean things, and whose 
reputation for courage illustrates their cowardice. 
Herod's oath may be classed with the morality of 
the gaming-table : his fear of those who sat with 
him is the inspiration of the duellist. Men neglect 
their debts of just dealing, their debts to broken- 
hearted wives and needy children, to pay their 
forfeits of ivory and pasteboard, and call this pay- 
ing " debts of honor"! For fear of those who sit 
with him, a brother takes a brother's life, or loses 
his own, to prove himself a man of courage ; thus 
proving himself a moral coward. Yes, fit type of 
a base worldliness even here, of elements that are 
planted in no eternal depths, and live in no vital 
principle, is that tetrarch of old. King Herod still 
sits in the gamester's mask, and writes his code in 
crimson lines where earth proclaims to heaven a 



JOHN AND HEEOD. 



127 



violated life. So had worldliness mixed with the 
essential conditions of humanity in Herod. 

Not so with John the Baptist. For whatever he 
may have been moved to do by special inspiration, 
whatever depended upon the peculiarity of his mis- 
sion, still we may regard him as a type of moral 
heroism. He is a type of one true to the highest 
ideal, and to the claims of conscience. There was 
a sense in which "the least in the kingdom of 
heaven was greater than he." One far mightier 
came after him, — one who is our true pattern. 
Nevertheless, a noble character is that of John the 
Baptist, with his self-devotion and his rocky heroism. 
His biography is fragmentary. We catch only 
glimpses of him in his quick passage across the 
stage of action, from the hour of his marvellous 
birth, to the time when, coming into the wild re- 
gion of the Dead Sea, he assumed the garb of the 
old prophets, took up the burden of their spirit, 
and summoned men to "repent." And but a mo- 
ment more we see him in the presence of the guilty 
king, and through the bars of a dungeon ; and then 
he lies in his martyr-blood. But, wherever we see 
him, w^e discern the same brave, true man, — a man 
who has been loyal to his own moral sense, and who 
has grown straight from its roots ; a man who, 
however he may err, however he may suffer, will 
never be haunted by the ghost of some violated duty 
or some ghastly wrong, saying, " It is I : I have 
risen from the dead ! " 



128 



JOHN AND HEROD. 



It was easy perhaps to be austere in the desert, or 
to be bold to the multitude. Whether the minister's 
pulpit be a rock, or a stump, or carved wood and 
velvet, it is easy for him to be courageous there, — it 
is easy to be upright there. He has it all his own 
way. Circumstances make men exceeding bold. But 
to enter the charmed circle of greatness and power, 
to speak the truth when it strikes like lightning and 
hits sovereign sins, — who will do that ? John did 
it. He was the same before Herod as before the 
people ; the same when he had to confront a man who 
could take his life, as when he spoke to the penitent 
who came trembling to his baptism. He stood up 
before this gross, imperious Herod ; and under all that 
robed majesty he saw only a man, — a man with 
a conscience that needed to be pierced, and with a 
spiritual nature estranged from God. And he spoke 
as to a guilty, immoral man, "It is not lawful for 
thee to have her ! " That was what I should call 
"personal preaching." Not very polite perhaps, but 
incisive and to the point. 

All men, however faithful and earnest they m&y 
be, are not cast in the mould of John the Baptist, or 
tempered to such a quality. But such a soul crying 
out in the world does the world good. It is refreshing 
to see the moral heroism of John set sharp against 
the worldliness of Herod. 

But, in closing, let us consider the fruit and consum- 
mation of these two lives thus brought in contrast. 



JOHN AND HEROD. 



129 



Herod, so far as we can trace him in the New Testa- 
ment history, sits there flushed and powerful over 
his wine ; sees his bloody order executed ; sees the 
gory head of his victim carried by, and vanishes from 
our sight in luxury and splendor. But John lies 
cold and still below, the brave heart motionless, the 
prophet tongue silent, no more to utter its fearless 
rebuke or its warning cry. And thus at first we 
may be moved to exclaim, " O young man, cut 
off untimely, and bleeding at the feet of brutal 
wrong ! O sad record of mortal failure ! O mourn- 
ful defeat of the hero on the field, so beautiful even 
in the death of the hero ! The world's evil too 
strong for you. The world's power triumphant. O 
sad type of many a defeat of many a fallen cause ! 
Such, then, is the upshot of these two lives, — Herod 
victorious in his wickedness ; John in his moral 
loyalty defeated and slain." 

But we do not, we can not, say this. We form a 
different estimate than this of John and Herod. Even 
in the conditions of this world and of time, we hear the 
tetrarch crying out, " It is John, whom I beheaded : 
he is risen from the dead ! " We see him driven 
into exile, and dying an inglorious death. We see, 
too, the Baptist, in the processes of his truth, going 
abroad throughout the earth in " the spirit and 
power of Elias." 

So, in other instances, we are to judge not by the 
transient event, or the aspect of the hour, but by the 



130 



JOHX AND HEROD. 



prevailing influence, the product that abides. Truth 
conquers in the long run, and right vindicates itself 
against the wrong, as u John risen from the dead." 
Thus in private instances, your bosom sin, your 
neglected duty, forgotten, exorcised, rises again to 
haunt you. And no man now hesitates in his ver- 
dict between the tetrarch of Galilee and the preacher 
of the wilderness. 

" All Scripture is given for instruction/' Your 
decision as to these two types of men is not merely 
concerning Herod, or concerning John: it concerns 
yourself. For, practically, you do decide. And 
what is this practical decision? Is it in line with 
the ruler, or with the prophet ? Let me ask you, in 
your daily conduct, in your ideal and your purpose, 
are you unfolding the life-fruit of Herod, or the life- 
fruit of John ? 



VIII. 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 

" But J ehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, 
took Joash the sou of Ahaziah, aud stole him from among the 
king's sons which were slain; and they hid him, even him and 
his nurse, in the "bedchamber from Athaliah, so that he was not 
slain." — 2 Kings xi. 2. 

HHHE transaction with, winch the text is connected 
JL belongs to that series of bloody events which 
were involved with the destruction of the house of 
Ahab. Among those who were slain in the fierce 
onslaught of Jehu, was Ahaziah, king of Juclah. 
Hearing of his death, his mother, Athaliah, the 
daughter of Jezebel, — her daughter in disposition as 
well as by birth, — resolved to secure the kingdom 
of Judah for herself; and to that end, she put to 
death, as she supposed, the entire brood of her own 
grandchildren; and having perpetrated this unnat- 
ural slaughter, she ascended the vacant throne. But 
the text informs us that to this wholesale murder 
there was one exception. Joash, the infant heir of 
Ahaziah, was by his aunt, Jehosheba, wife of Jehoida 
the high-priest, snatched from the fury of the usurp- 

181 



132 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



ing queen, and concealed in the Temple. Atlialiali 
maintained her guilty reign for six years. It was 
a cruel, oppressive, and idolatrous reign, sternly cal- 
culated to foment the opposition of all who were 
loyal to the legitimate government and the ancient 
religion, and to cement their union. At length 
Jehoida, under oath, disclosed his secret to some 
of the chief men of the Jewish nation, and, having 
secured the alliance of the military and the priest- 
hood, broke out with a successful revolution. Upon 
a day appointed, the guard and the people having 
assembled in the Temple, Jehoida brought the 
young Joash out before them. Having anointed and 
crowned him, the people clapped their hands, shout- 
ing, "God save the king!" Hearing the tumult, 
Athaliah entered the Temple, and there encountered 
the startling spectacle of the lawful heir to the throne 
w r ith the diadem on his head, and an army ready for 
his defence. The alarmed queen rent her clothes, 
and cried "Treason! Treason ! 51 But her voice was 
drowned by the blast of the trumpets and the ac- 
clamations of the multitude. She was immediately 
seized, dragged beyond the precincts of the Temple, 
and put to death. 

I have selected this incident because it affords a 
suggestion which the text makes especially emphatic. 
It is quite possible, that in the blindness of her fury 
Athaliah did not stop to reckon the exact number of 
her victims. At any rate, — bent upon her ambi- 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



133 



tious purpose, and snatching the reins of empire 
with hasty and bloody hands, — she supposed that 
she was safe. That sacrificial pile made for her 
secure steps to the throne. But, according to the 
narrative before us, in the very day of her triumph 
were planted the seeds of retribution, and in the per- 
son of that rescued infant they were growing close 
by her side. It seems to me, then, that this entire 
transaction suggests the fallacy of evil, the false- 
hood of sin. And so this incident of a very ancient 
time is applicable to all time. To some it may 
appear a very superfluous task to urge an argument 
against evil in itself. Up to this point it may seem 
that all argument is foreclosed. It may be thought 
that the very term " evil ?? suggests all the argument 
that is necessary. Of course there may be many 
instances when the question will arise, wdiether this 
or that really is evil. But this point being made 
clear, it may be assumed that no further discussion is 
required ; for everybody condemns evil. The moral 
sense of every man repudiates it. 

Nevertheless, evil prevails ; not often, it is to be 
hoped, in such shapes of conspicuous and revolting 
wickedness as in the case of the Jewish queen, but in 
countless other shapes, both in public and in private. 
And how many there are for whom it is not enough to 
say that this thing or that thing is evil. Either they 
do not, or they will not, see it as it is. They do not 
practically condemn it, because it is sustained by 



134 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



some kind of sophistry, — sophistry, very likely, 
growing out of superficial conceptions of the nature 
and conditions of evil. In order to meet such in- 
stances, then, it does not seem superfluous to urge 
the argument, or, at least, an argument against evil. 
I by no means assume that any such argument is in 
itself a converting process. The roots of evil are in 
the human heart ; and what is truly called " the grace 
of God in our Lord Jesus Christ " is the only power 
that can lay hold of it, and draw it out. Rut it is ne- 
cessary to attack the outworks before we can besiege 
the citadel. It is necessary to demolish the props of 
sin, in order that men may feel their essential weak- 
ness in sin. Speaking, then, not of evil in its origin, 
or in its more subtle relations in the heart of man, 
but in practice, — in acts and habits and methods, — 
let us, in some respects at least, see how the argu- 
ment makes against it. 

In the first place, I ask 3'ou to consider the inse- 
curity of evil. This is very clearly illustrated in the 
incident before us. Athaliah's scheme was a sweep- 
ing one. It was summary in its execution. The 
argument which she employed was the sword ; and it 
seemed as though all obstacles had gone down before 
it. 

But one point was left exposed, and through that 
point entered destruction. And it is wonderful how 
common such mistakes are, even in the most cunningly 
planned iniquity. When the evil-doer has arranged 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



135 



all liis devices, and they seem to be turning out just 
as lie would have them turn out, very often he seems 
smitten by judicial blindness, and he leaves some 
clew by him unperceived. Or we may say Provi- 
dence gathers up some witness in its concealing folds, 
and lo ! all at once it leaps out upon him. Take 
some of the grosser instances of iniquity. The thief, 
as he supposes, clears away every thread of detec- 
tion ; but, in the most unthought of way, the keen 
eye of justice picks out some slender filament of 
guilt, and presently the entire web is dragged into the 
light. The calumniator constructs his charge so 
plausibly, that as it seems his victim can find no 
flaw for escape, when accidentally some minute test 
of truth is applied, and the lie shrivels, and shows all 
its blackness. The murderer drops some bloody 
hint of his deed. He makes a footmark in the 
leaves, or babbles his secret in the revelations of a 
dream. Or, years afterward, some token that he has 
foolishly retained betrays him ; or some mouldering 
skeleton bursts from its hiding-place, and proclaims 
his doom. 

But let us proceed to the consideration of less con- 
spicuous instances. A man conducts business On a 
system of petty frauds. For a while they glide quite 
smoothly, and he secretly chuckles at his own prac- 
tical demonstration that tZ/shonesty is the best policy. 
But in time his meanness gets wind : custom drops 
off, and he sinks in credit. Or his good fortune, if 



13fi THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 

good fortune he has, is tainted by his reputation. 
Men will worship a golden calf for the sake of the 
gold ; but there is apt to be a polite sniffing at 
gilded carrion. 

Another finds it convenient, now and then, to oil 
the hinges of opportunity with a little lying. Quite 
likely he does so with very slight compunction or 
thought. It may serve his purpose. Very possibly it 
will do so. And yet it is just as possible that he will 
find a nest of trouble in it. Perhaps, in some un- 
lucky moment, the truth strikes him flat in the face, 
and brings him to open shame. Or he has to fabri- 
cate a series of lies to support the first, until the 
chain breaks of its own weight, or tangles and trips 
him ; and it turns out that it costs more to keep a 
set of lies in tune than it would to have told the 
truth in the outset. Talk of losing by the truth, of 
not affording to speak the truth, of getting old fash- 
ioned, and being left high and dry in the great swirl 
of competition, by telling the truth ! I maintain 
that nothing is so safe as truth, nothing stands all 
kinds of hard knocks like truth, nothing comes out 
so clear and complete as the truth. A man who 
cannot afford to lose money by speaking the truth, 
and who has enthroned himself on lies, is always 
likely to encounter some uncomfortable Joash that 
will brin^ him down. 

Then, again, there are some evil devices that one 
cannot carry out alone, — they must be helped by 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



137 



other people : and this creates the insecurity of 
participated counsel. The confederate may be bribed 
to treachery, or become conscience-stricken. At least 
we may be quite sure that one who will connive at 
fraud or mischief can have but slight anchorage in 
principle ; and no seal of " honor * ? so-called, or even 
of interest, is strong enough to assure the wrong-doer 
that he is not plotting with a town-tattler or a 
State's evidence. 

Now, I am well aware that this is only one argu- 
ment against evil, and that with some it may reach 
but a very little way. There are many, I fear, who 
act upon the principle of running the risk, believing 
that in such matters the average gain will pay all 
losses. They shrewdly remark, that the doctrine of 
" getting found out " is simply a bugbear of the 
preacher or the moralist, which may be efficacious in 
keeping boys and girls upon their good behavior, 
but which rests upon no wide range of facts. Even 
murder does not always u come out;" and lesser 
sins are apt to escape with impunity, or are lost sight 
of in success. I presume there are men who will not 
be deterred from a gainful fraud, or a mean policy, 
by any fear that the lie will be detected, or the fraud 
exposed. I admit that this danger of detection is not 
a very lofty argument. " Honesty is the best p<jlic;j " 
does not occupy a high place in the catalogue of 
moral sanctions. The man who has gone no farther 
than this on the road of virtue has not gone far. 



138 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



The doctrine of consequences is a doctrine of second- 
ary considerations, which a good man does not want, 
and which a bad man means to dodge. And that is 
a very ungodly sorrow which is only sorry for the 
exposure. Nevertheless this is one argument against 
evil : its methods and its instruments are insecure. 
Good men will make mistakes. Good men will com- 
mit oversights. Perhaps they are more likely to do 
so than those of the other class. Trusting simply to 
the right, they may not keep their wits so keenly 
on the alert. Men who undertake to engineer a bad 
enterprise are very apt to be what are called " smart 
men." There are not many downright wicked fools. 
It is quite possible, that, for a time, the knaves will 
foil mere righteousness ; and, where cleverness is the 
only point in consideration, they may show them- 
selves superior to those who are simple enough to 
trust in honesty. A conspiracy against law or recti- 
tude requires more brains, and, for a while, may 
develop more brains, than are exhibited in defence of 
it ; only, brains are not righteousness, nor truth, 
nor honor, and in the upshot are not a match for 
these. And throughout every department of human 
action, there is this essential difference between fraud 
and truth, treachery and loyalty, — whatever ex- 
posure may take place, the good man has no reason 
to fear. The exposure may demonstrate that he was 
weak in judgment, or unskilful in execution ; but the 
right motive will redeem his work. But the least slip 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



139 



may ruin the knave and unfrock the hypocrite. The 
short-sightedness of the right intention is an honest 
mistake ; the oversight of the base purpose is a fatal 
error. Therefore, in the first instance insecurity 
means a very different thing from what it does in the 
last. Jehosheba might have been detected, but her 
death would not have been such a catastrophe as 
Athaliah's. The sword of usurping wrong that 
cleaves the true heart leaves no black and blasting 
wound as does the sword of justice when that falls 
upon the guilty and the cruel. Even death, that 
levels all, is not the same incident to all. The honest 
worker may push on his work in calm confidence, 
although disappointment may balk him. But let the 
fraudulent and mean look well to every crevice in 
the wall. Yes, life is an uncertain sea, and the good 
as well as the bad may suffer the shipwreck of their 
hopes. But the one has done the best he could. He 
has laid a well-intended course, studying his chart, 
and observing heaven. The other of his own accord 
has run his ship among quicksands and breakers. 
Both are liable to mistakes ; but, I say once more, the 
insecurity of the good is not like the insecurity of 
the bad. The one must be vigilant and humble ; the 
other has great reason to be restless and afraid. 

II. There is another argument against evil, akin to 
that upon which I have just dwelt. This argument 
appears in the fact, that in any wrong course there 
is an intrinsic incongruity. This truth, perhaps, is 



140 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



easier felt than expressed. But I may be able to 
convey some idea of my meaning by saying that evil 
does not tally with truth. It cannot profoundly and 
completely simulate the good. In one word, it is 
contrary to God. Now, I have already admitted that 
evil methods do sometimes — indeed, I must say do 
frequently — succeed. Nevertheless, I do not admit 
that this triumph is a final triumph. Very likely it 
will turn out that the consummated guilt does not 
set well. It wears a doubtful aspect. Suspicion 
warps it, although detection may not lay it open. It 
does not fit snug into the general order. I have 
spoken of a tainted reputation. And I ask, does not 
a bad man find it somewhat difficult to hide his real 
character ? The process is apt to develop undue 
clumsiness, or extra facilit)^, too little heat, or too 
much zeal. The painting is over-colored ; or else it 
is quite evident that the face is wax and the eyes 
are glass. Sometimes men put on piety as a cover- 
ing for meanness. And yet how apt it is to become 
suspected piety ! There is too much of it. It is too 
thick and garrulous. There is no superfluity in the 
genuine quality, nor in any thing that God has made. 
At least the semblances used by evil are not just like 
life. I grant, that, to the common vision, they may 
often appear so. They may lurk unknown, and all 
may look fair. The knave may pass for an honest 
man, and the hypocrite for a saint. But, then, there 
is danger in the fact that the thing is simulated. All 



THE FALLACY OF EYIL. 



141 



reality, and all the currents of God's providence, are 
against it. There is some method, some microscope, 
or acid, or alkali, that can expose its baseness. Some 
time since, I was examining a sample of ore that 
looked very much like gold: I was informed that 
the material has often been taken for gold. Perhaps 
in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thou- 
sand it would pass for gold. Is there, then, no test 
by which it may be distinguished from the nobler 
metal ? Yes : it does not weigh quite so much as gold. 
So base-metal acts, that look like shining gold, may 
sometimes get weighed. Some years ago, in Boston, 
in the course of a certain trial, great perplexity was 
occasioned respecting some forged notes. It seemed 
impossible to distinguish the genuine signature from 
the counterfeit. At last two of the papers were 
lapped over each other, and held up against a win- 
dow through which the strong daylight was stream- 

© o Jo 

ing, and the difference was made clear. A celebrated 
lawyer was employed to contest what was believed 
to be a fraudulent will, which if sustained would 
entail great distress upon the rightful heirs ; yet 
there was the document, all properly signed and 
sealed, and duly attested. The lawyer was much 
perplexed. He scrutinized the will, and turned it 
over and over. At length he happened to hold it 
up to the light, and then he saw that the water-mark 
in the paper bore a more recent date than that of 
the spurious will. So deeply impressed was he with 



142 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



the hand of Providence in this detection, that he 
broke out in devout thanksgiving. Yes, here is the 
point. Falsehood cannot stand the searching of 
the light. The wrong is not in all respects like the 
right. The sinuosities of guilt vary from the hand- 
writing of truth. The wolf will be likely to betray 
the fact that the sheep's clothing was not made for 
him, and the trickster may get crowded into condi- 
tions that will bring out his shabbiness. At times 
terrible is the incongruity between the evil course 
and the smooth appearance. Some of you may have 
seen a certain engraving, very powerful in its delin- 
eation, but very ghastly. It represents a duel after 
a masked ball. In the early gray of a winter morn- 
ing the two antagonists have ^one out to fight. One 
of them, partly supported by a friend, is reclining 
upon the ground, while the blood of his death-wound 
slowly oozes from his breast. The other is stealing 
away in the misty distance with the stain of slaugh- 
ter upon his sword. But the ghastly point in the 
picture is not simply the catastrophe : it is the awful 
contrast, — the blending of frivolity with tragedy, — 
the intermixture of demon passions with the relics 
of the dance : the blood of a violated life staining 
the gay costume of the masquerade ; and the calm 
look of nature brooding around the transaction, 
like a solemn judgment morning. So do the ele- 
ments of sin sometimes burst their glittering dis- 
guises; guilty passion glares through all the pro- 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



143 



prieties : and in the witnessing presence of God's own 
universe the intrinsic incongruity of evil appears. 

Besides this, we must remember also that wrong 
always occupies the place of some right. It exists by 
repressing that right. Therefore it is exposed to the 
re-action of that right. Referring to instances that 
are important enough to remain visible above the 
horizon of time, we find, that, as the world moves, 
there goes on a rectifying process. Justice sifts and 
sifts, until the verdict abides with the right, even 
though *• canonized bones " are stirred in their cere- 
ments, and the graves give up their dead. As we re- 
treat from the past, the eternal disc of truth emerges 
from temporary obscurations, while on the great 
ecliptic of history every thing falls into its proper pos- 
ture. The schemes of wicked policy, and the idols of 
a deluded veneration, lie crushed and exposed, The 
memory of the tyrant blackens, and the martyr 
has his palm. No wrong can go down secure and 
compact through the ages. It does not assimilate 
with God's order, and it bears no fertility of bless- 
edness in its bosom. It must break up, it must 
give way, under the pressure of events. Truth is 
tidal, like the sea that keeps throbbing in its rocky 
arteries. It will toss that which encumbers it, like 
drift-weed : it will swell over every break-water 
that has been set to keep it back, until it reaches the 
mark that God has ordained for it. The celestial 
movements may seem slow and wearisome : neverthe- 



144 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



less, "the stars in their courses fight against Sisera." 
There is no peace for the wicked, though robed in 
the most splendid success. There is no security for 
the wrong, however sealed and established. Evil 
may seem to be as well as the good. But it is not as 
well. Like that guilty Jewish queen, it falsely occu- 
pies the throne ; and sooner or later justice comes, 
like the lawful heir, and claims the birthright. 

III. But, after all, the great argument against evil 
is the essential nature of evil. At this point I meet 
those superficial conceptions of which I spoke in 
the beginning of this discourse. And I suppo.se 
that just here we may trace the grounds of much of 
the wrong conduct and the false policy that prevail 
in the world. It may be affirmed, at least, that 
niany run into evil courses without any deliberate 
adoption of the wrong in preference to the right, 
and yet, on the other hand, without any thought of 
what the real curse of evil is. They look at things 
merely on the outside. Thus, the danger of evil 
seems to be merely external penalty and exposure, 
while the benefit of goodness is outward profit and 
reward. Therefore, a man has only to make up his 
mind to run the risk of these contingencies, and he 
is very likely to pursue the course into which in- 
clination drives him, or where some immediate profit 
presents itself. If, then one entertains a worldly 
wisdom that outcalculates the common precepts of 
expediency, or if he holds an ethical system that 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



145 



sets all evil on the edge of external punishment, and 
puts that punishment far off, the argument against 
evil which I have been urging may prove practi- 
cally powerless. It must be admitted that evil 
courses do succeed; that honesty is not always 
the best policy, although it is always the best thing ; 
that sin prospers, and righteousness often loses 
and fails. Retribution does not always start out 
conspicuously, as in the case of Athaliah. Suppose, 
then, that all the instances asserted as to the inse- 
curity of evil could be refuted, would the balance 
of argument be in favor of evil ? No. The signal, 
everlasting refutation comes, when we discern the 
real nature of evil. The moral perception of any 
man upon this point may be tested by this simple 
question : Suppose AthaMah, instead of being over- 
taken by that signal punishment, had kept the 
throne, and died in ripe old age, a crowned and 
successful sovereign. Would any one really envy 
Athaliah's career? Would her position have been 
a desirable one ? Would it have been really a 
success and a blessing? Iso. The essential evil in 
her case appears in what the guilty woman was in 
herself. 

Here, then, is the actual point. We must reject 
evil for what it is in itself; and, in this, all its 
sophistries are exposed. Surely there is no instance 
in which a man deliberately elects wickedness for 
itself alone, and as the final cause of his action. 



146 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



No man who employs fraud or falsehood maintains 
that his chief good is in the fraud or falsehood. 
They are his instruments. Hence, he defends them, 
or acquiesces in the use of them. Thus he lies and 
cheats, not for the heartfelt satisfaction of lying and 
cheating, but for the purposes of a worldly policy. 
He spins some dishonest scheme, because he thinks 
this the best way to secure his end. He would just 
as soon use the morality of the Ten Commandments 
if he thought the stock was as available. But, 
agreeably to his experience, falsehood makes the 
money stick to his fingers a little closer than clean- 
handed honesty will. And that is why he uses 
falsehood. Or he is intent upon pleasure ; and he 
travels the road of guilty pleasure, because he finds 
the most enjoyment there. Sensual gratification 
constitutes his ideal of pleasure; and, finding this 
at the bottom of the wine-cup, that is his way. Or 
he is spurred by ambition. " The surest way," is his 
motto. Any thing that will make a ladder to climb, 
although each post is a sham, and every round is 
a lie. When the people sculpture their demi-gods, 
who will remember that they were demagogues ? 
Who will retrace the dirty track by which they 
gained the pedestal ; or, if they do, what will the 
difference be to him ? Thus evil is not relied upon 
for itself, but for what comes by the use of it. 

But now here arises the consideration that evil 
does become an end, remains an end, when the object 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



147 



sought for has failed or vanished. The gains of the 
unscrupulous seeker may crumble, his pleasure may 
taste upon his lips like the lees of dead wine, and in 
the end of his ambition he may find only the arrows 
of calumny or the scoffings of popular change. But 
the evil itself does not desert him. The agent which 
he has cherished and used — the falsehood and the 
baseness — stick and abide in his soul, which he may 
have forgotten, but upon which at some time he must 
fall back. There, within, — in the elements of his 
own personality, — what meanness and accusation, 
what woe and ruin ! All the capital that the guilty 
man possesses is this perishable stuff without, and 
within a world whose dark recesses he dares not 
fathom, in which lurk ugly memories and fearful 
thoughts, and where conscience rolls its low, deep 
thunder. 

When the Jewish queen, stained with the blood 
of her grandchildren, lost the throne she had waded 
through so much slaughter to obtain, do we say that 
" all was lost " ? No ; all was not lost. TheTe still 
remained the blackness and the infamy of her own 
soul. But would any amount of success have made 
her action really better ? Would it have made it a 
desirable achievement ? " The ungodly are like the 
chaff, which the wind driveth away : " the righteous 
man is " like a tree planted by the rivers of water, 
that bringeth forth his fruit in his season ; his leaf 
also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



prosper." As a sentence of external success or fail- 
ure, many may doubt or deny this -'assertion. They 
may point to the success of the shrewd, the clever, 
the unscrupulous. But as to the inward state, — 
the essential, permanent life of the man, — is not this 
sentence emphatically, sublimely true ? The hope 
and desire of the ungodly, are they not uncertain as 
the chaff, which the wind bloweth away ; while 
within the dark, scarred threshing-floor remains? 
But the good man, does he really fail ? The right- 
eous cause, does it not really succeed ? " We are 
not sure of it," you may say. " Evidently it does 
not, and will not succeed in your time or in mine." 
But it will succeed. Righteousness does not rest 
upon extrinsic conditions. The sanction of right- 
eousness is righteousness ; the blessing of goodness 
is goodness. These are truths to carry into the 
endeavors, the struggles, the thick temptations, of 
the world. " He who is in Christ Jesus is dead to 
sin." That is the normal state. He who lives truly 
strives to be good because God is good; that is the 
foundation reason for honesty and justice and purity 
and love. To do evil is to wither and perish in 
soul. To do good is to expand in nobler and 
larger life. The ultimate blessing is not in getting, 
or even in doing, but in being. And he who nour- 
ishes in himself this intrinsic element of goodness, 
stands as the rightful heir to a real life in the uni- 
verse. That is the sceptre in the loyal will, the 



THE FALLACY OF EVIL. 



149 



crown in the true soul, not like Athaliah's diadem 
spotted with blood. That is the triumph of the 
spirit of Jesus. It is exaltation like that of God's 
own throne. 



IX. 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 

" The eye is not satisfied with seeing." — Eccl. i 8. 

THIS fact is selected as an instance of man's 
profitless curiosity, as a symbol of the insatiable- 
ness of the human mind. The writer of these words 
beholds all things moving in wearisome and inef- 
fectual labor, — aiming at an end that is never 
reached ; man and the world around him ; the wdnds 
that keep wheeling in their circuit ; the streams that 
are perpetually running into the sea ; the sea that is 
never full ; the eye that is not satisfied with seeing ; 
the ear that is not filled with hearing. 

Upon this conclusion of the preacher's argument 
I do not propose to dwell. But I call your attention 
to a few suggestions which grow out of the fact here 
set forth, — the fact that, to whatever result, " the 
eye is not satisfied with seeing," and perpetually 
craves new objects. 

My remarks will, I think, prove applicable to two 
cases, — to the dreary doctrine that man is virtually 
nothing, and all his efforts are unavailing ; and also 

150 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



151 



to the Christian's affirmation, that there is something 
better and more lasting than the objects of our 
sensuous vision. 

I. In the first place, then, I direct your attention 
to the thing itself ' which in the text is said not to be 
satisfied with seeing. I direct your attention to the 
human eye. The grandest revelations of life and 
nature are infolded in the most familiar facts. He 
who has found no lofty suggestion in traversing the 
entire firmament, may yet gain something in study- 
ing this wonderful instrument of sight. Consider 
what instances of skill we gaze at with admiration, 
and cross oceans to behold, and yet how imperfect 
and clumsy they are compared with this little com- 
pact organ set in its bony cup, with its lenses and 
regulators and pullies and screws, its curtaining iris 
and its crystal deep, its inner chamber of imagery 
on which are flung the pictures of the universe, — 
the aspects of nature, the shapes of art, the symbols 
of knowledge, the faces of love ; this magic glass, both 
telescope and microscope, filled with the splendors 
of an insect's wing, yet taking in the scenery of 
heaven ; this sentinel of the passions ; this signal 
of the conscious soul, kindled by a light within more 
glorious than the light without, and never satisfied 
with seeing. 

Such is the human eye. And from the lowest 
creatures, whose visual apparatus is a mere nervous 
speck, up to the most complex organisms, there is 



152 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



nothing that has the range of this organ. In certain 
specialties of vision man may not be equal to some 
animals or insects. The shark and the spicier, the 
hawk and the cat, may see better on some particular 
plane of sight ; but in that general power which 
far transcends any special capacity, in scope, in 
possibility, in educated faculty, in expressiveness, 
the human eye excels all others. 

If, then, superior qualifications are to be taken as 
proof of superior purpose, this fact of itself is sig- 
nificant as to the dignity and the destiny of man. 
We need no better refutation of sceptical theories, 
no other attestation of sublime hopes, than this crys- 
tal globe of vision, — the astronomer's eye, for in- 
stance, wandering over the remotest fields of light ; 
the artist's eye, catching the subtle beauty of nature ; 
the eye of love and devotion, recognizing the pres- 
ence and the touch of the all-pervading spirit. 

But in this line of argument nothing seems more 
suggestive than the very statement of the text : 
" The eye is not satisfied with seeing." Now, so far 
as we can judge, the merely animal eye is satisfied 
with seeing. The brute does not shift about to get 
better views of nature. He does not search the 
landscape for objects of beauty and sublimity. The 
ox grazes contentedly in his pasture, and seeks noth- 
ing beyond the promise of his food. In darkness, 
says the Psalmist, " all the beasts of the forest do 
creep forth," roaring "after their prey," and " seeking 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



153 



their meat from God." But when "the sun ariseth, 
they gather themselves together, and lay them down 
in their dens." It is man only who " goes forth unto 
his work and to his labor until the evening." It is 
man only who finds in the opportunities of vision the 
inspiration of action, and in all that lies under the 
sun secures employment for a restless curiosity. He 
ponders unfathomable problems in the pebble and the 
weed, and eagerly searches the secrets of the universe. 
How much of human enterprise is simply the result 
of a longing for vision, — the desire to see strange 
lands, and look upon memorable faces, to watch the 
evolution of facts, and detect hidden causes ! Xo 
man is satisfied with that which he sees right around 
him. The child longs to know what lies beyond the 
hills that bound his familiar valley, into what 
strange country the sun goes down, and upon what 
marvellous region the rainbow rests. The school-boy 
quits playing with the pebbles and the surf, to won- 
der about other shores across the wide, gray sea, and 
gazes wistfully at the gilded sails away out on the 
horizon. And here, as in other things, " The child 
is father to the man." Ever straining beyond the 
visible limit, ever exploring some depth or height, 
" the eye is not satisfied with seeing." In the heal- 
thy working of the faculties, it is never weary of the 
opening day, never indifferent to the promise of 
something new. Doubtless there are nobler motives 
than curiosity leading men to the ends of the earth. 



154 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



But how much heroism and achievement does that 
single passion of curiosity itself inspire ! In its 
gratification, over what a grand scale of diversities, 
making up the world-wide harmony, does the eye of 
man sweep, until the earth lies unrolled in the travel- 
ler's memory, like a sheet of choral music. From 
the West to the East, whatever the sun reveals as it 
flashes upon the rim of the wheeling earth ; from the 
south to the north, where the sun burns above the 
horizon for one long summer's day, where it hides 
in the darkness of polar night ; wherever the white 
wake of ships encircles the globe like a chain ; wher- 
ever man's foot may cling, or his hand may hold 
from the depths of primeval darkness and the heat 
of central fire, away above the path of the eagle, 
where the voice grows faint in the thin upper air, — 
so does the grand panorama unroll itself before the 
unsatisfied eye, — tracts of brown desert and inter- 
vals of rolling green, snow-capped mountains at 
whose feet lie billows of yellow corn and purple 
grapes, clots of teeming cities as motley as their 
men, spots of unprofaned grandeur almost holy in 
their solitude, — the poles and antipodes, the burn- 
ing cone of Cotopaxi and the monotony of Arabian 
sands. 

The eye, however, is not satisfied with its own 
natural limits, but seeks the aid of instruments. 
As, in its aspects, it is the most striking of all the 
organs of sense, so does it transcend them all in its 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



155 



scope, both of space and time. This little orb of 
observation, turning on its minute axis, sweeps the 
splendid theatre of suns and systems, comprehending 
millions of miles in a glance, and visited by rays 
of light that have been travelling downwards for 
thousands of years. 

Now, all this statement would be only wearisome 
and profitless, were it not for the suggestive fact 
which it involves, and which, when we duly consider 
it, comes to us with quickening force, — the fact 
that this insatiable curiosity is characteristic of man 
alone, and that so much of his time and his effort 
should be devoted to the mere purpose of seeing. 
Whether the upshot be all vanity and vexation of 
spirit, or whether it lead to substantial results, the 
fact itself is none the less suggestive, and draws us 
into a train of important reflection. 

II. For now let me ask. What is it that is not 
satisfied with seeing? In no scale of created being, 
— not even the lowest. — is it the eye itself that 
sees. It is the instinct, or consciousness, back of the 
eye. Examine the dead organ in man or animal, and 
all its wondrous mechanism is there. Lift the fallen 
lid, and the light of the outward world flickers upon 
its surface. But the faculty of sight is not there. 
The power that back of retina and optic nerve, and far 
within the mysterious chamber of the brain, actually 
saw and apprehended the visible forms of things, — 
this has vanished. Whatever that faculty may be 



156 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



in the brute, we have seen that in man it is a pecu- 
liar and distinctive faculty. We have seen that to 
him belongs this desire for vision, — this pushing 
inquisitiveness that is never satisfied. Such, then, 
must be the inner and conscious nature of man. 
Such must be the mysterious power behind the 
eye, — the thing that really sees. Therefore the 
eye that is not satisfied with seeing is the spirit 
within us. The outer organ is only its factor, or 
representative. The mind of man is the eye of man. 
And here opens an argument that rebukes material- 
istic disparagement and confirms Christian hope. It 
is because of the limitless nature of the human soul, 
that the eye of man never rests, but perpetually 
wanders over all the visible world, over all the 
regions of possible truth and beauty. Surely, if 
this were merely a mortal and limited nature, this 
would not be. Man would be satisfied with seeing, 
even as the brute, adjusted to his only sphere, is 
satisfied with seeing ; and he would be content with 
the scope of the visible and the present. The fact 
that he is not thus content suggests that for him 
there is something more than the visible and the 
present, — a higher than any mere earthly destiny, 
— a nobler than any mere animal function. 

In the first place, consider what it is that the 
physical eye itself imjrfies. I would not urge any 
presumptuous theory of final causes. I would not 
attempt to decide what any one thing is absolutely 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



157 



made for, nor overlook its relations to all other 
things as part of a grand and complex whole. But 
an examination of this mechanism alone, — these 
cups, these tissues, these muscles, these elastic 
veils — shows at least that the eye is adjusted to 
the conditions of the external word, and that there 
are external things for it to behold. So much, I 
repeat, the physical eye implies. But, this being so, 
I ask, What is implied by that consciousness which 
acts behind the physical organ, — that faculty 
which really sees, and is never satisfied? I have 
said that the mind of man is the eye of man ; and 
I ask, What does that restless mind itself, with its 
capacities and instincts, imply? Surely it implies 
the existence of objects fitted to those capacities 
and instincts, — the existence of unlimited truth 
and beauty and goodness, and a field of deathless 
activity for that faculty which is never satisfied. 
In this peculiarity of man, — in this mounting rest- 
lessness and boundless desire, — I trace a power 
which, though it may often be prompted by a vain 
curiosity, and seek trivial gratifications, nevertheless 
bears the stamp of an irrepressible quality and end- 
less life. 

For now that we have arrived at the fact that it 
is really the mind that sees, — the mind itself that 
is the unsatisfied eye, — we find that not only is it 
unsatisfied with any limit to its material vision, but 
it is not satisfied with the mere forms of things. 



158 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



Back of iris and retina there are other lenses. 
There is a lens of instinct, a lens of reason, a 
lens of faith, through which come reflections far 
beyond the visible veil of earth and heaven, images 
of ideal majesty and loveliness, and "a light that 
never was on land or sea." Are these mere fantasies 
engendered from within ? If so, I ask, What do these 
interior lenses imply? And why do they exist at 
all ? In the dead organ, even as it lies useless in the 
socket, we find demonstration of a visual purpose. 
We infer real objects without, to which it was made 
to correspond, or, at least, to which it has been ad- 
justed. What, then, must we infer from this mech- 
anism of spiritual consciousness, — the faculty that 
really sees, — when we find it adapted to spiritual 
realities ? What can we infer, but that in the wide 
realm of actual being there are spiritual objects which 
answer to its function ? For the mind, and not the 
body, being the real eye, the faculty of looking out 
upon material forms is only one of its functions. 
This faith-vision, this preception of reason, is just 
as truly an original faculty, although now its objects 
may be seen onty as " through a glass darkly." In 
fact, with the physical eye we never do see things, — 
only the reflection of things. You never really saw 
the most familiar object. You never gazed upon your 
mother's face, or the expression of your child. We 
have only portraits of the dearest friends hung in 
the marvellous gallery of the eye. Yet we do not 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



159 



distrust these transmitted images. We live in their 
light, and rejoice in their communion. Why, then, 
distrust these other conceptions, though they are but 
images also, and we may behold them only in that 
transparent world where the material lens shall be 
shattered, and we shall see as we never do here, — 
" face to face " ? Why suppose these to be fantasies, 
any more than the mountains, the stars, the cataract 
with its awful beauty, the familiar form, the dear 
countenance with its enduring look of love ? This 
apprehension of God as an inscrutable Essence, yet 
also a veritable Presence ; this impression on the 
retina of the soul of those who have vanished from 
our material sight, but who still look upon us across 
the river of death; this picture-gallery of beloved 
ones, of all saints crowned with immortal palms, that 
enriches the chambers of the humblest mind, — are 
these but mists of fancy, or dreams of mortal sleep ? 
I answer that they are as legitimate as any transcript 
of the outward world, only more indefinite, as all facts 
involved with the infinite and the immortal neces- 
sarily must be. They are revealed to the same eye 
as that which sees through the physical organ ; their 
outlines lie as steadily and as undeniably upon its 
retina as do the outlines of material things. There 
are diseased eyes, and there are defective eyes, by 
which the optic nerve brings false reports, upon 
which the outward world looks grim and obscure, 
to which all external things are a blank. So, too, 



160 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



there may be diseased and defective souls, whose 

images of spiritual things are fantastic and exag- 
gerated, or whose vision is sealed altogether by sad, 
interior blindness. But these do not impeach the 
legitimate function of the eye, nor refute the gen- 
eral convictions of men. And these conceptions 
of God and immortality do not belong to the cate- 
gory of personal conceits. In one form or another 
their outlines stand pictured on the common soul 
of man, — the soul of the child, the savage, the saint, 
the philosopher. 

This is not a fanciful analogy, — a play upon words. 
It is an argument. I maintain that these other lenses 
of the mind — which is the faculty that really sees 
— imply corresponding objects as veritably as the 
mechanism of the physical eye implies corresponding 
objects. I maintain that these images that hang 
upon the retina of the soul are as surely the reflec- 
tions of realities as those which linger on the tissues 
of the material organ ; in fine, that as the mind is 
not satisfied with seeing the mere material form of 
things, but seeks and discerns something behind and 
above them all, it follows that such a transcendent 
region actually exists. 

Moreover, as this faculty of vision that permits no 
limit to its material discoveries, and looks beyond 
these sensuous veils, is never satisfied with seeing, I 
ask, What does this fact itself imply ? Surely it sug- 
gests boundless opportunities of action. The desire 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



161 



to see is never quenched: nevertheless the mere 
physical organ of sight grows weary, and gladly 
retreats under its drowsy lids. The -dew of sleep is 
required for its refreshment, and the periods of dark- 
ness indicate a necessary suspension of its work. 
Age draws over it a filmy curtain. " They that look 
out of the windows are darkened," says the author 
of the text, describing in an impressive figure that 
season when man's citizenship in this lower world 
draws to a close, and he is to be released from his 
labor among visible things. And so comes Death, 
shutting up the worn-out casements, and bringing 
on the final night when all this curious mechanism is 
resolved into its elements. But the actual eye is not 
yet satisfied with seeing, and the forces that shatter 
its material instruments do not quench its capacity 
or its yearning. But no capacity is without its sphere, 
no instinct is forever balked. The unsatisfied eye 
demonstrates the deathless and ever-unfolding mind. 

Thus whatever inference of unprofitable thought, 
or vain curiosity, the preacher in the Book of Eccle- 
siastes, or any other man, may draw from the fact that 
"the eye is not satisfied with seeing," this inference 
also grows out of it, that it supports the loftiest 
truths of religion concerning human destiny and 
mseen things. 

III. One point remains to be considered. I have 
illustrated a general condition of humanity. Upon 
this I have endeavored to construct an argument as to 



162 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



human dignity and destiny. No man is satisfied with 
seeing. All men manifest this unlimited desire. But 
certainly all men do not manifest this in the same 
degree. With some it is faint and fitful. Therefore 
in perfect consistency with what has been said, I also 
urge this truth, — that the eye sees more and more, 
and more and more shows its capacity for seeing, in 
proportion as it becomes accustomed to worthy ob- 
jects. There may be diversities of spiritual, as there 
are diversities of physical faculty. Consider what 
some men will train their natural eyes to behold, — 
the sailor at the masthead, the Indian in the woods, 
the Esquimaux among the snows. The visual faculty 
of every man may not be capable of such refinement, 
and yet the eye of any man may be trained to greater 
skill. And so there are diversities of spiritual sight, 
some of them perhaps resulting from original differ- 
ences in power. But the spiritual vision of any man 
may be educated to still better results. Some men 
hardly see any thing with the interior eye, or, rather, 
with the interior lens of the eye, which is the mind. 
Living among scenes of wonder and of beauty, — 
among the ancient miracles of nature, — to such a 
man there is nothing but common earth and sky, — 
a barometer for the weather, or a field for crops. 

" A primrose by the river's brim, 
A yellow primrose is to him, 
And nothing more." 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



163 



But to the eyes of another it is much more, and 
every thing exhibits something else than its material 
expression or worldly use. Each opening morning 
comes like new-born life, " trailing glory " from the 
Creator's hand. One reason why men have not this 
spiritual discernment is because they will not see, 
because they neglect the faculty of seeing. It has 
been truly said that " the eye sees only that which 
it brings the power to see." It does not create the 
thing to be seen, any more than the microscope cre- 
ates the pomp of an insect's wing, or Eosse's tube 
the splendors of Orion. But we see just what we 
exercise the power to see ; and no external revelations, 
however urged upon us, will make up for the lack 
of spiritual refinement. If you would see more 
things and better things, educate the eye. Educate 
the physical eye if you would see more of the natu- 
ral world. But, even then, the mind must be edu- 
cated, if we would discern the glory and the beauty 
everywhere, and live in a world of perpetual delight, 
detecting a rarer loveliness in the daisy, and pictures 
of wondrous grandeur in the shadows that drift 
along the mountain. It is not merely far travelling 
that enlarges and enriches the vision. Humboldt 
may have seen no more than a thousand other men 
who have been roving over the earth; but he saw 
better. The observant philosopher discovers a world 
of wonders in " a tour around his garden." All this 
tends to the point, that the eye of the soul be edu- 



164 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



cated, — the interior faculty which in reality does all 
the seeing. Let the eye of the soul be educated if 
you would see the world in new relations, if you 
would detect the true significance of life, if you 
would discern the real blessedness of every joy and 
the right look of every affliction, if you would stand 
consciously in the presence of God, and gaze upon 
spiritual things. Then you will see these realities 
where they are, nor wait for the opening of the crys- 
tal gates to discern what mere material vision can 
never behold. 

It is an old truth, but as true as it is old, that 
" none are so blind as they who won't see." What 
we really need is not more things but better eye- 
sight. And is it not this eye of the soul that we 
must mainly rely upon ? How far will physical sight 
guide us? How long will it last us? How much 
will it enable us to see ? At best it gives us only 
appearances, and itself fades and grows dim ere long. 
Think, then, of the desolation of those who have no 
interior vision. How light, comparatively, has been 
the affliction of phj-sical blindness to men like Nie- 
buhr, who, when the veil had fallen upon present 
things, could cheer the darkness of his closing years 
by retracing in the luminous track of memory the 
scenes of early travel ; or to Milton, who, " with that 
inner eye which no calamity could darken," saw 
" those ethereal virtues flinging down on the jasper 
pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold." But 



THE UNSATISFIED EYE. 



165 



" if the light that is in thee be darkness, how great 
is that darkness ! " In fact, a man's spiritual state 
may be tested by what he sees, by the way in which 
the world, and the things that are in the world, look 
to him. Men saw no comeliness in Jesus : they dis- 
cerned not the aspect of divine truth, because they 
themselves " were not of the truth." Pray, then, for 
light, as of old those blind men by the wayside 
prayed, " Lord, that our eyes may be opened ! " 

God has placed us in this world to see. Glorious 
are the revelations of material things to the material 
eye ; but far more glorious are the revelations made 
to the eye within. And yet, within the limitations of 
our present state, even these are not enough for us. 
Is it not a very suggestive fact ? Trained by Him 
to discern all this excellence, the eye is not satisfied 
with seeing. It is meant that it never shall be 
satisfied, here and now. The eye, by this very com- 
munion with spiritual objects, is educated to a larger 
capacity and a nobler desire : and so passes onward, 
unsatisfied still, beyond the veil, to see more and 
more of the perfection of God, but, never satis- 
fied with seeing, to push its perception still onward 
and upward, while the point of present attainment 
will ever be the signal of new possibility and per- 
petual aspiration. 



X. 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 

" "Who is the image of the invisible God." — Col. i. 15. 

I BEGIN this discourse with the general proposi- 
tion, that man is conscious of, or at least that 
he apprehends, something beyond what we call 
nature, — something beyond this order of visible and 
material things. No facts of the external world are 
more veritable than the facts of the human soul. 
You are not more certain of what you see than you 
are of what you feel. This gravitation towards an 
Unseen Reality is so nearly universal as to warrant 
the suspicion that the few instances which are 
regarded as exceptional are exceptional only in ap- 
pearance. For instance, the statements of travellers 
who have penetrated the wild continent of Africa are 
upon this subject almost unanimous. Dr. Living- 
stone, speaking of the inhabitants of South Africa, 
says, " There is no necessity for beginning to tell 
even the most degraded of these people of the exist- 
ence of a God or of a future state, " the facts 
being universally admitted. Krapf tells us of a 

166 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 167 



pygmy race, four feet high, who 44 live in a com- 
pletely savage state, like the beasts, yet possessing 
something of an idea of a higher Being, called Yer, 
to whom, in moments of wretchedness and anxiety, 
they pray." Eyen in regard to the tribes of New 
Holland, whose possession of these supersensual 
ideas has been denied, a traveller giyes an affecting 
recital, that goes to prove the existence of such 
ideas. " Walking one day," he says, " into the 
village of a secluded tribe, an old woman 4 came ' 
up, and looked at him with evident signs of agita- 
tion and pleasure. After gazing a while anxiously, 
she said, 4 Yes, it is he : ' and clasped the stranger 
in her arms. He learned, by and by, that she looked 
on him as the fleshly ghost of a lost son." 

It is, however, a mistake to regard the primitiye 
man, the aboriginal, savage man, as the authentic 
type of the complete man. In him the germs of all 
our higher faculties are sheathed and suppressed ; 
and we have no more reason for asserting that he is 
not by nature a religious being, because in some 
cases the apprehension of spiritual things is dim or 
imperceptible, than we have for refusing him the 
title of an intellectual being, because in his rude and 
repressed state we find no faculties for science or 
for pure reasoning. 

But it is not my purpose to multiply proofs of the 
proposition that man is conscious of, or at least ap- 
prehends, relations to unseen things. In the light of 



168 



THE CHRISTIAN [REVELATION. 



such evidence as readily appears, I assert that he 
does apprehend such relations, whether there are any 
valid grounds for such apprehension, or not. 

The next step, then, is to ask questions : What is 
this unseen power ? and what are our relations to it ? 
There may be many in whose minds these questions 
do not arise sharply and distinctly. There may be 
many such before me here to-day. For you are 
familiar with the truths of Christianity, and very 
likely have never been disturbed in your traditional 
conceptions. You have never known what it is to 
"feel after God," like those of whom Paul spoke. 
You have never known what it was to look up into 
the immensities of nature, unlighted by that glory of 
the Lord which has shone around the march of hu- 
manity ever since Christ came. But I ask you to 
throw yourselves back into the condition of the world 
as it lay in heathen sensuality, and philosophical un- 
certainty, and Jewish limitation, before Christ came. 
Consider the opinions, the customs, the yearnings, of 
humanity then, and contrast with that condition the 
faith, the assurance, the grasp, which the soul now 
has of its God and its Father, and you may in some 
degree appreciate the significance of 44 the image of 
the invisible God." 

Yes, strip off a little difference of drapery, and 
there, nineteen hundred years ago, throbbing under 
the mystery of life, is the same human heart. There 
is the soul of man, groping, stumbling, swept with 



THE CHRISTIAN EEVELATIQX. 



169 



passions, besieged by temptations, seized and hurried 
along by inevitable powers, concerning which it 
knows nothing. There are love in the vacant cham- 
ber, and death upon the threshold, and time gather- 
ing its trophies in the track of vanishing years, and 
the loom of destiny weaving its alternations ; while 
around all, constellations rise and dip, and the cold 
stars shine, and nature, with its mechanism of relent- 
less forces, to all these yearning spirits gives no sign. 

And let me add, that, so far as the possibilities of 
the human intellect are concerned, I see no ground 
for supposing, that, if Christ had not made his revela- 
tion, we should not be essentially in the same condi- 
tion as those men and women of the ancient time. 

And even now, if we will shake ourselves clear 
of routine, and look into the naked convictions of 
our own minds, we may realize the forcibleness of 
that great question, "What is that Power behind 
nature, and what are my relations to it?" And I 
feel quite sure, that, after we have searched and 
pondered, we shall find no satisfactory solution of 
that problem, except the solution indicated in the 
text. I feel sure of this, because no solution was 
found until Christ came. Even the Jew had not 
a complete answer to this question. He had the 
Law, but did not recognize the Spirit broader and 
deeper than the Law. He discerned the God of 
holiness, but not the universal Father. Or, if to 
him were given these wider and deeper intimations, 



170 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 



at least this line of revelation was confined to a 
race. Philosophy had not discovered a full answer to 
the question which I have indicated. It confessed 
that it is " a difficult thing to find the true God." 
Of course, I do not disparage the grounds of philo- 
sophical belief, or the strong basis of argument that 
exists in our moral consciousness and in necessary 
ideas. Nevertheless, I do not know that the human 
mind has had any contributions, since far earlier 
times, so as to render it able of itself to give a satis- 
factory answer to the question, "What is the 
Power behind nature to which the soul bears wit- 
ness, and what are man's relations to it ? " The 
human mind, during the past few centuries, has 
achieved much. Yet its most signal triumphs have 
not been in the direction of spiritual discoveries, but 
of physical facts. And what aid has science afforded 
for the solution of this great problem ? It has 
thrown open a vast theatre of being; and by so 
doing it has rendered our conceptions of the rela- 
tions between the Infinite and the finite more be- 
wildering. Indeed, it has reduced the apparent 
importance of man in the great scale of things. It 
shows us general laws and general ends ; but you 
and I are only individuals in this vast mechanism. 
Our human nature calls for special sympathy and 
care. We stand among these visible and transient 
forms with no assurance of any spiritual alliance 
beyond the veil. We live our brief round of years, 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 171 



rejoice in our quick-sprung joys, and taste the bitter- 
ness of our real sufferings, and go the way of all the 
generations; and all the while the wheels of nature 
calmly roll on, their cold splendor flickering alike on 
the places that know us and the places that know us 
no more. Now, what is there that answers to this 
deep need within us? What is there that gives 
us any satisfactory answer ? I reply, Nothing but 
Christ, — Christ, " who is the image of the invisible 
God ; " Christ, who shows us what God is, and what 
are his relations to us, inasmuch as he shows us the 
Father. He fills up this immensity of the unknown 
with an all-pervading spirit of holiness and love. 
In the place of laws and forces, he gives us a 
living Personality. 

But conceding that by intellectual effort we can 
penetrate beyond the veils of the material world, — 
granting that by spiritual insight we apprehend a 
spiritual cause, — is not this truth liable to dissolve 
into a mere abstraction ? God everywhere, but at no 
point touching us with any special sympathy, and, 
therefore, at no point really grasped by the devout 
affections of the heart ! Now, this personal relation 
in Jesus Christ checks this tendency to abstraction. 
It gives us definite anchorage for our faith, and a 
real person for our love. The religious life of the 
soul cannot take root in an abstraction. Our hearts 
can cling only to such an object as Jesus shows us. 
We can appreciate virtue, moral beauty, goodness, 



172 THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 

only as they are realized and expressed in a personal 
life and action. In fine, we can have a satisfactory 
revelation of Him who is behind all things, and upon 
whom all things depend, only in the way which the 
text declares. I maintain, then, that this is the pecu- 
liarity of Christianity. Its central fact was literally 
an advent, a personal coming into the world. It is a 
very imperfect notion to regard it as merely a collec- 
tion of doctrines and precepts. Nor do they give a 
satisfactory account of Jesus who regard him as only 
an exemplar or model. He is much more than this. 
He not only leads us on, but lifts us up. He not only 
guides, he helps us. He is not only the ideal of 
humanity, he is "the image of the invisible 
God." 

I proceed to remark, that Jesus is the representa- 
tive of God in the only way in which it is conceiv- 
able that God could be represented to man. Exert 
your thoughts to the utmost, and you can conceive 
no other way in which the Invisible, whom no ej^e 
hath seen or can see, — the Infinite, which in its 
essence cannot be comprehended by finite faculties, — 
you can conceive no other way in which this could 
be made real to us, — shown, not in his absolute 
nature, which it is impossible for us to perceive, but 
in his moral personality, in his relations to man, 
which is all we need to know, — this could be made 
real to us in no other way than by that image in 
Jesus Christ. 



THE CHRISTIAN BEYELATION. 173 



When I put these two facts together, then : on the 
one hand, when I perceive how much man needs 
a revelation of God, how all round the world he 
yearns after God; and then, on the other hand, 
when I consider what it is that purports to be such 
a revelation, when I consider that this revelation 
comes just in the shape that is wanted, comes as an 
"image of the invisible God," in such an one as Jesus 
of Nazareth, — I feel assured that we hold to no false- 
hood, to no mere myth, but to a solid truth. 

But Christ standing before us as " the image of 
the invisible God,'' at once lifts us into the region 
of spiritual facts, and makes the unseen real. As a 
practical application of my theme, therefore, I pro- 
ceed to observe, that from this point we draw the 
interpretation of three things. 

I. Life. 

II. The human soul. 
III. Providence. 

I. As " the image of the invisible God," — as one 
who has made the unseen real, — Christ gives us a 
true interpretation of life. He not only teaches, but 
he shows us, that " the life is more than meat." 
Need I say how vividly this truth is impressed upon 
us when we behold all the relations of our existence 
visibly drawn into connection with their divine 
source ? Unaided by this revelation, the human mind 



174 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 



spins its inferences from vague though, undeniable 
instincts, and from the objects of the material world. 
I do not seek to exalt Christianity by disparaging 
reason. As well seek to glorify the range of tele- 
scopic vision by disparaging the powers of the human 
eye. And, as an intimation of the divine source and 
the high destiny of the human mind, let us accept 
not only the conclusions which it has successfully 
wrought out, but the very problems with which it 
has grappled. Let us measure its greatness, not 
merely by what it has done, but by what it has tried 
to do. Could any mere creature of earth and chance 
even suggest such problems, or attempt to explore 
them ? The reasonings and the inquiries of man in 
all ages are splendid hints of his origin and his birth- 
right. They are steps which, though resting upon 
the earth, and veiled at the top, nevertheless point 
upward. It seems a cogent answer to any sceptical 
sneer at human speculation, to say that man has ever 
speculated at all, or yearned for knowledge of those 
high and hidden things. 

Surely one who was a mere creature of earth and 
sense would be content to graze and perish. And 
yet what a flood of light breaks upon these strange 
passages of human life, when in the clearness of a 
personal revelation we see who and what he is with 
whom we have to do ! For what is that expression 
of the invisible God which is reflected upon us, 
children of humanity, in our conflict and sorrow and 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION . 



175 



sin, from the face of Jesus Christ ? It is an ex- 
pression of infinite love, assuring us of our relation 
to one who carries us and all souls in his compassion 
and his care. In distant lands, amidst strange scenes 
of camp or desert, the wanderer, oppressed with lone- 
liness, may conceive that he is forgotten in his far- 
off home, and may find even in his own consciousness 
that the bonds of kinship have been melted into 
abstractions by space and time. But, when he takes 
out the portrait of a father's or a mother's face, it 
revives the magic vision of the heart, and makes 
those absent ones near and fresh again. So in life's 
exile seasons, its dreary scenes, its camp-fire hours of 
watch and peril, the heart of man is strengthened 
and his soul assured by the image of the Father's 
face in Jesus Christ. And if by this we may inter- 
pret special instances and conditions of our individual 
experience, so may we interpret life itself. Its 
transitory forms and shifting processes are revealed 
in their eternal relations, and we discern their pur- 
pose, and are drawn into communion with Him 
who fills and orders all things. 

II. As " the image of the invisible God," Christ 
convinces us of the reality of the human soul. Man 
is prone to ally himself with things of time and 
sense, until practically these become every thing. At 
length he asks, " What is the soul ? I see nothing 
but a body : I know only a bodily life. I find no soul 
by the crucible or the battery. I detect no such 



176 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 



tiling under the microscope. How does the soul 
exist ? What is its witness ? " Or, if he does not 
ask such questions theoretically, he practically sug- 
gests them. 

Now, the soul does bear witness to itself, — it bears 
witness, so to speak, by its own motions. Those 
realities which most truly constitute a man's own 
self — invisible thoughts and affections — are made 
manifest in visible expressions. Through lips of 
clay speaks a parent's love, through eyes of flesh 
look hope and fortitude, through fingers of bone 
and sinew thought works out its grand devices. 
And the works of the soul plead for it. The 
creation of genius endures, — the beauty which is 
immortal in the marble or on the canvas; the 
truth which stands on the printed page, and which 
goes forth as a word of consolation and of power, 
as an inspiring impulse, as a trumpet-call, from gen- 
eration to generation. But the creative genius it- 
self, was that mere flesh and blood ? Has that 
decayed with the perished frame ? Is that now 
all dust and ashes ? Or, being itself immortal and 
unfailing, does it still live, like the beaut3 r , the 
truth, with which it travailed and which it ex- 
pressed? What do I say, — the beauty immortal 
on the canvas and in the marble ? The truth 
standing forever on the printed page ? Yes, the 
beauty immortal, the truth enduring ; but not 
the marble, not the canvas, not the book. These 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 



177 



shall perish, and the special elements which they 
enshrined will find new forms of expression. 
Surely, then, so shall the soul which consorted 
with these find new forms of expression, even 
though its material vehicle crumbles away. 

But too often these witnesses of the soul are not 
heeded, and the soul itself does not comprehend its 
own witness. Christ makes the fact real to us, " the 
image of the invisible God : " he awakens within us 
a consciousness of alliance with Himself and with 
the Father, so that whoever believes in him knows 
that he shall not perish. To such an one, immor- 
tality is a present inheritance. He feels that his 
soul is worth more than all the outward world. 
Therefore he will not sell it for all the world can 
give. He will not deny it for all that the world can 
take away. He will not bury it in worldly cares, nor 
suffer it to corrode with worldly uses. He will 
cherish its divine alliance. He will strive that it 
may be sustained in the atmosphere of its true life. 

III. As " the image of the invisible God," Christ 
gives us the key to a providential plan in things. 
Events in this world are involved with invisible 
relations. Unseen ends, unseen uses, ordained by 
One who is unchanging and eternal, — such is the 
right conception of the conditions among which we 
are placed. Events trouble us because their entire 
scope is not within the limits of our vision. Thus 
death is a mystery when we look only to visible 



178 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 



things. This resolving into dust of warm and 
living tissues ; this crumbling away of thought, 
affection, life ; this vanishing of those whom we 
know and love into voiceless darkness ; this cataract 
of generations pouring over the precipice of time, — 
pondering upon this merely with the eye of sense, 
what does it all mean ? It is only when we look 
with different vision, — a vision of that realm which 
heretofore has been invisible, — that we find the ex- 
planation. 

And here, too, is the fact of sorrow. Why should 
this be the special burden of human hearts, the inev- 
itable shadow that accompanies human bliss? Why 
should it be while the physical world is so beau- 
tiful and joyous? Such splendor in sunshine and 
moonlight, such a glory upon the hills, such delight 
even in the more awful forms of nature ! And 
surely in the more defined circle of animal conscious- 
ness, there appears no such struggle with destiny, no 
such depth and boundlessness of agony, as in the 
experience of man. Why. then, such a peculiar bur- 
den laid upon the human heart ? To this question 
no answer comes from things apparent. From the 
invisible world alone that answer comes. A grander 
field of action beyond the vale, O heroic soul ! for 
which here your powers are tried and prepared. 
Spiritual results, O sufferer, baptized with dews of 
mighty agony ! in them shall be revealed the glorious 
blossoms which now lie folded in your # crown of 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 



179 



thorns. Realities beyond, O smitten mother! in 
your tearful blindness vainly reaching forth for that 
which has forever left its pressure on your bossom, — 
realities beyond, where affection shall no longer " see 
through a glass darkly," — and children's voices are 
singing in the choir of heaven. He who deals with 
us is invisible, and works for unseen ends. 

And thus we are led out into broader contempla- 
tions of a providential plan encircling the world, 
and sweeping through all transactions. ISTot visible 
agents, but the invisible Providence, really precipi- 
tates events, and controls them. Whatever the 
issues of the hour, confront them boldly. Do not 
confound an argument with a fear, nor think with 
human breath to stop the revolution of the globe. 
God makes history, and he keeps making it. Broader 
ends than American history, or European history, or 
Oriental history, or the history of any single place 
or time, are comprehended in that perpetual, overrul- 
ing movement, — ends and uses that are invisible. 
There is no ripe and quiet time. No question is 
settled. Change, postponement, defeat, sacrifice, — 
these are the laws. Furrows for the seed. The iron 
ploughshare before the harvest. Discipline, loss, 
martyrdom, in the present ; all, doubtless, for some 
nobler future ; but that, ah ! that, is in the counsels 
of the invisible God. 

Yet surely there would be little consolation if we 
possessed nothing but the conviction of an invisible 



180 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 



Providence in public or private affairs. How much 
would our mere guesses help us in regard to the 
general welfare or our own ? By the light of his own 
wisdom, who can tell us what this invisible Providence 
is ? Or what aid do we get from science ? Well, it 
gives us a scale to measure by, — a concrete method 
to help our intellectual conceptions. Geology, for 
instance, reveals a vast plan in the natural world, 
unfolding through ages, and thus may suggest the 
analogy of a plan in human affairs. It lends us a 
sort of time-measure, when we are disposed to cry 
out, "O Lord! how long?" Astronomy, also, 
illustrates the fact of illimitable relations, and forbids 
our confounding a part with the whole. 

But how do we know that there is any Providence 
at all ? Or are we sure that this unseen power is not 
a disguised malignity, or a blind fate ? And who 
shall convince us that our reasoning is any thing 
more than the expression of a need, a fond desire, 
rather than the certification of a great reality ? 

Evidently these visible things, regarded by them- 
selves, at times might discourage and appal us. And 
men who look to these things alone do get discour- 
aged and frightened, and then, either in Epicurean 
indifference, or atheistic despondence, cry out, " All 
is at loose ends ! " My hearers, we must have 
some revelation of this unseen Providence. It must 
come clown among these conditions which we do see, 
and show us the supreme Good-will which controls 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 



181 



the affairs of the world at large, but which also cares 
for you and me. We have such a revelation. Once 
amidst this scenery of time and change, Christ has 
appeared, — 4i the image of the invisible God," — 
and thus gives us the key to Providence and the 
providential plan. 

I need not dwell longer upon illustrations. Let 
your own thoughts, your own experience, indicate 
them. In closing, then, I simply ask, Have you 
ever considered this peculiarity of Christianity ? 
Have you ever pondered the meaning of this decla- 
ration concerning Jesus, that he " is the image of the 
invisible God " ? 



XI. 



SAMSON. 

"And Samson said, Let nie die with the Philistines. And he 
"bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the 
lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead 
which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in 
his life." — Judges xvi. SO. 

I CALL your attention at this time to some sug- 
gestions growing out of the life and achievements 
of Samson. I shall speak of him as he appears in two 
aspects. First, as a providential man ; that is, a man 
notably working in the line of providential intention. 
And, in the second place, I shall consider him inside 
this wide sphere of historical movement, as a form 
of individual character illustrating traits which in 
some sense are common to us all. 

I. It appears to me that Samson, although an 
imperfect character, and in some respects a weak 
one, stands related to the divine economy at large 
precisely as he stands related to the general scheme 
of divine truth within the lids of the Bible. It may 
hardly be necessary for me to say, that because an 
instance is recorded in the Book of Numbers, or in 

182 



SAMSOK. 



183 



the Book of Judges, it is not, therefore, necessarily a 
divine instance. Every man is not a perfect man 
because he enters upon the scene of revelation, even 
when he helps to carry out, and we may say has a 
64 mission " to help carry out, the purposes of that rev- 
elation. I repeat, it may hardly be necessary to say 
this ; and yet many people apparently regard Scrip- 
ture history as isolated and exceptional ground, 
where every transaction is supernatural, and every 
believer in God is sacred. Therefore, any flaw in the 
character of such personages is regarded as a flaw in 
the entire Bible. Apparently, by some, it is considered 
a damaging argument against the claims of revelation 
to show that Jacob was guilty of fraud, and David of 
grosser sin. But, in fact, this only illustrates the 
peculiarity of Scripture history, which does not pre- 
sent a collection of isolated transactions, or an array 
of exceptional men. As Palestine is a part of our 
common earth with England and France, — as the 
same general atmosphere envelops the woods of 
America and the cedars of Lebanon, — so the men 
of the Bible exhibit our common nature, and show 
their human side, notwithstanding its contact with 
the divine. It is not an exceptional world, or an 
exceptional humanity, that is displayed there ; only 
there is more strikingly made manifest the implica- 
tion of Providence with men and with events. It is 
not God's ideal of man that is presented in the Bible, 
but the gradual unfolding of man's ideal of God. 



184 



SAMSON. 



Therefore, although the children of Israel were 
chosen to be depositaries of God's truth, it does not 
follow that the people themselves were immaculate. 
The record shows that they were far otherwise. 
And when, here and there, some personage arises to 
lead on the destinies of the people, and with these 
the world-wide destinies committed to their charge, 
shall we be surprised because, at the same time, he 
is a fallible and even a barbarous person, bearing the 
stamp of a rude age ? 

But whoever studies the record will. I think, be 
impelled to concede this, that however rude the 
events, and however imperfect the men, among these 
and through these flows a divine revelation like a 
gulf-stream, palpable in truths the most profound, in 
sentiments the most devout, that kindle the minds 
and nourish the hearts of men in all ages. There 
stand the indisputable results in history. From the 
oblivion of twenty-five hundred years. Assyria lifts 
its winged lions and human-headed bulls. Still 
among the sands stand Egypt's mystic temples, 
showing in shapes of ape and ibis what Egypt wor- 
shipped as its gods. In forms of glorious sculpture 
Greece preserves her conceptions of natural beauty. 
And now, among these monuments, old as the oldest, 
stands this monument of the Hebrew Bible ; illus- 
trating not a visible but an invisible God. not with 
painted hieroglyphics, or strange conceits in stone, 
not with cold and lifeless marble, but with unchan- 



SAMSON. 



185 



ging truths, in living words, that at this very hour 
awaken the sublimest conceptions of spiritual reali- 
ties, and work in the most forward movements of 
our time. So ineradicablv have these conceptions 
been wrought into the nature of one people, that in 
those revolutions which have blown sand-drifts over 
great empires, and whirled this very people across 
the earth, they still remain, among all the tribes of 
men, distinct and peculiar. By virtue of these Bible 
truths so long and sacredly cherished, they are the 
great educators of our race. Yes, with all its im- 
perfect characters, with all its incongruous events, 
here still is the Bible, unfolding these conceptions 
of God, of duty, of eternal verities, made known so 
many ages ago, yet challenging our admiration, our 
conviction, and the test of our largest culture. It 
unrolls its wondrous history; shows us individuals 
rude and fallible; shows us an ungrateful nation, 
often lapsing into idolatry, marked by varying 
grades of civilization, yet influenced by ideas far 
more pure and sublime than those which swayed 
the minds of other men, and ever as they sink into 
false worship by some strange impulse heaved clear 
above it again, and brought back to the service 
of the one God. Observe, it is no idol, no graven 
image, like those of the nations around him, to 
which, in all his degradation, blind and staggering 
Samson lifts his prayer, but to the Unseen and the 
Eternal ; and in this lonely act of devotion he rises 



186 



SAMSON. 



far above the mocking rabble who rejoice in his 
downfall and his shame. Turn to the very first leaf 
of this book : there stands that sublime declaration 
which the human mind cannot overleap, that " in 
the beginning God created the heaven and the 
earth." Compare this account of the creation with 
all other cosmogonies, and see if it is not the only 
account that is at all adequate, the only account 
that is not intrinsically absurd. There are the 
Ten Commandments, the moral sentiment of which 
the most enlightened souls confess, and will to the 
latest time obey. There is that wonderful litera- 
ture. There are those passages in Job, those out- 
bursts of prophetic splendor, those psalms in which 
the loftiest and tenderest conceptions of God find 
expression, and where the profoundest emotions of 
the human heart speak in penitence and trust, in 
gladness and supplication, in exultation and wailing. 

Whatever, then, may be the character of the 
transactions or of the men recorded in the Bible, it 
exhibits a divine element ; it unfolds a revelation of 
God by which a peculiar race is educated for the 
benefit of the whole world. They are educated, and 
therefore they only gradually advance out of igno- 
rance and falsehood. Their errors cling to them, 
and keep dragging them down; but through all 
flows the divine current bearing them along, and 
with them the great plan of Providence. 

Furthermore, if we are perplexed because God 



SAMSON. 



187 



permits this thing or that thing, and only at last 
evidently overrules, let us remember that the Bible 
is not exclusively burdened with such perplexities. 
For so it is in the entire scheme of things. In the 
universe at large, God permits many things, and 
only at last evidently overrules. But it relieves no 
dilemma, — at least, it only breeds other dilemmas, — 
either in the Bible or in nature, to reject the idea 
of a divine element because of certain incongruous 
facts. 

And now we may be prepared to accept the con- 
clusion, that if the Bible is to be received as contain- 
ing a divine revelation, and the Jews are to be 
regarded as a divinely educated people notwithstand- 
ing the tumultuous times of Joshua and the wild 
and bloody wars of the Judges, so is Samson to be 
regarded as a providential man, — that is, a man 
helping forward God's purpose, — although he was 
a man whose moral standard was not the highest, 
and w r hose conduct at times was weak and bad. 

I presume that the details of his history are 
familiar to you. Those who are not much used to 
the Bible — young men who are living merely for 
pleasure or for chance, and who are very dubious 
respecting the contents of the old book; old men 
who have let the dust settle thickly upon its covers 
— do nevertheless remember the storj^ of the famous 
Jewish hero who rent the lion, and slew the Phil- 
istines, and carried the gates of Gaza upon his 
shoulders. 



188 



SAMSON. 



And yet what freshness exhales from this old 
narrative ! What interest and pathos in those strug- 
gles of a fierce heroism, — in that wild tract of 
history with its rim of miracle and tragedy ! And 
with those strange transactions of thousands of years 
ago, blend the love and hatred, and joy and grief, 
the strength and infirmity, of a real human life, 
coming close and appealing to our humanity to-day. 

I have indicated the way in which I consider 
Samson to have been a providential man. In a 
notable manner he helped accomplish the divine 
purposes in Jewish history, and therefore in all 
history. The angel who ascended in the flame of 
]\Ianoah ? s sacrifice proclaimed that he should " begin 
to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines." 
This object was effected, as it seems, under the garb 
of personal feuds and revenges. The entanglements 
of private affairs involved the threads of national 
destiny ; and, as it were, the spirit of an entire people 
was concentrated in the single-handed efforts of one 
man. A Xazarite from his mother's womb, the 
superhuman strength of Samson appears to have 
been implicated with his faithfulness to the vow of 
which his unshorn hair was a sign and pledge. Pos- 
sessed of this marvellous power, and acting more or 
less consciously under influences which impelled him 
like strokes upon " a drum or cymbal," the position 
of the territory of Dan, the tribe to which Samson 
belonged, as the outpost of Israel, impinging upon 



SAMSON. 



189 



the country of the hostile and victorious Philistines, 
afforded a convenient theatre for his exploits. In 
marrying a woman of Timnath, he may .have been 
moved by genuine affection, although at the same 
time consulting national or patriotic objects, while 
this intimacy finally turned entirely to this latter 
result. The discordant elements, for a moment- 
bound together by the nuptial tie, soon began to 
exhibit their mutual repulsion ; and Samson found 
ample occasion for public and for private vengeance. 
The marriage terminated in treachery and in blood- 
shed, and a riddle led to slaughter. Betrayed by 
his own wife, the Jewish hero, in whom there seems 
to have dwelt a grim humor as well as strength, pays 
his wager of thirty garments by slaying and strip- 
ping thirty Philistines. In the wild war that follows, 
his weapons are as fantastic as they are effective. 
He astonishes, torments, and overcomes his enemies 
with firebrands at the tails of jackals, and with the 
jawbone of an ass. He smites them hip and thigh. 
He slays a thousand of them in a single battle. 
They can neither conquer nor surprise him. Shut 
up within the walls of Gaza, he rises at midnight, 
bursts open the gates, and carries them away. 

We see, then, that, rallied against the strength of 
Samson, the endeavors of the Philistines were all 
in vain. But they achieved a temporary triumph 
through his infirmity. The weapons of his down- 
fall were his own passions and sinful dalliance. The 



190 



SAMSON. 



prowess that had smitten thousands vanished in 
Delilah's lap. The formidable foe, bound, blinded, 
and grinding in a prison, becomes an object of mock- 
ery and contempt. But through guilt comes sorrow, 
through sorrow repentance, and through repentance 
new strength for sacrifice, for death and victory. In 
the midst of shame and pitiable helplessness, the 
captive is inspired to lift that last prayer to God, — 
" O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and 
strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, 
that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for 
my two eyes." He exclaims, " Let me die with the 
Philistines ; " and then, bowing himself " with all his 
might, the house fell upon the lords, and upon all 
the people that were therein : so the dead which he 
slew at his death were more than they which he 
slew in his life." 

Now, in all this, it is easy to see that Samson 
helped forward the deliverance of the Jewish people, 
and the designs of Providence. As I have already 
remarked, this lifelong contention with the Philis- 
tines, though apparently the ferment of a private 
quarrel, was really the action of a national spirit, 
and the avenging of national wrongs. It is always 
refreshing to encounter a man who is patriotic from 
his heart's core to the tips of his nails; in whose 
loyal pulse throbs every pulse of the nation, not 
turned by any current of private or party feeling 
into that inverted patriotism which rejoices in the 



V 



SAMSON. 



191 



nation's defeats, and laments at its victories. And 
there is always hope for a nation that holds in its 
bosom even one such man. Even when his country- 
lies with her forehead in the dust, like Israel before 
the Philistines, here is one artery of regeneration. 
When the flame of Liberty seems smouldering out, 
her torch may be kindled again from the spark in a 
hero's breast. The conduct of Samson must have 
had its influence in arousing the ancient spirit of his 
people ; and this, carried out far beyond his limita- 
tions and defects, into the great current of the divine 
plan, worked to a glorious deliverance. 

Nay, as in his death he slew more than in his life, 
so the manner of that death may have been more 
effective to the great ends in view than his own living 
efforts. The very weakness of the strong man, con- 
ducing to his fall, may have led to a greater victory, — 
to the fame of the hero lending the inspiration of the 
martyr. Humanity gathers its grandest energies and 
its final triumphs not from occasions of splendid suc- 
cess, but from the sad memories of great men, and 
the most mournful tragedies of history. There is no 
such inspiration in Austerlitz as in Thermopylae. 
The fervor of patriotism is kindled quicker by the 
bloody snows of Valley Forge than by the triumph- 
ant cannon of Yorktown. In her slow procession 
around the world, Liberty bears not laurel-wreaths 
and flags of victory, but the pale and bleeding 
effigies of her martyrs. The defeat of every good 



192 



SAMSON. 



cause foretokens its resurrection, as the harvest 
springs from the buried seed. In the darkest day 
of a people's career, when its most sacred bulwarks 
have been overturned by unscrupulous tyrants, we 
may joyfully anticipate the achievements of desperate 
freedom, and the rebound of insulted truth. 

Nor, in presenting Samson as a providential man, 
can I help dwelling upon the thought of such a 
process going on in the wide field of history. It is 
the glory of natural science to detect the pulse of a 
majestic movement in all things, _■ — in the drop of 
dew, and in Saturn's " luminous ring." But it is the 
achievement of a still nobler science to detect a divine 
action through ages and nations, through dynasties 
and revolutions, overruling all policies, never balked 
by events, but weaving still its own grand results. 
"Whenever an extraordinary character like Samson 
appears upon the scene, it suggests the truth that 
" Providence conceals itself in the details of human 
affairs, but is unveiled in the generalities of his- 
tory." 

And whatever mystery may be involved with this 
work of Providence ; however perplexing it may be 
to find so much evil in the world, and to behold the 
wise and good God carrying out his designs through 
these very processes, — we gain nothing, we lose much, 
by dismissing the notion of a Providence. For the 
sin and suffering, remain ; and then they assume the 
aspect of chaotic sin and suffering, — sin and suffering 



SAMSOX. 



193 



of unlimited possibility. But now this great zodiac 
of Providence, girdling the world with its mysterious 
splendor, only convicts us of a short-sightedness that 
cannot pierce its depths, or comprehend its sweep, 
while room is left for our faith, and encouragement 
for our effort. It binds the transactions of history in 
a glorious unity. It permits us to look beyond the 
human purpose and the present hour, to a compre- 
hensive and beneficent result, evident in decay as in 
growth, — sweeping in the fire-storm of Bonaparte's 
ambition as in the lonely wake of Columbus. It 
assures us that no tendency will be permitted to run 
too far. On the one hand, intoxicated with privilege, 
and lapsing into weakness, the people by and by, like 
Samson, are seized, bound, and blinded. But again 
when oppression sits in a haughty supremacy of power, 
abused and insulted humanity, like Samson grinding 
in humiliation, grasps the pillars of social order, and 
the fabric topples down. If any cause is only man's 
cause, it is weak with human contingencies ; but 
the cause of God. proceeding through generations, 
surviving individuals, surviving events, is never de- 
feated. 

II. In the next place we may consider Samson's 
life, inside the sphere of historical movement, as 
affording practical suggestions for us all. 1. In the 
first place, then, let me say something respecting 
the wondrous power of this Jewish hero of the olden 
time. Even this quality does not remove him far from 



194 



SAMSON. 



any one of us ; for each of us, although he has not that 
power, has power of some kind, equally with that held 
in trust from God, and like that depending upon the 
spirit in which it is held. In the case of Samson this 
power is said to have lain in his hair. When that 
was shorn he became weak. But those unshorn locks 
were only a sign of his consecration as a Nazarite, — 
of his relation to God, — answered on the other hand 
by this marvellous physical gift. When in weak 
compliance he lost the sign, then the thing signified 
departed from him. But I observe that there is no 
true strength for any man save in inward rectitude, 
■ — in right relations between his own soul and God. 
And it is surprising to find how much that is called 
power is, after all, only an empty symbol of power, — 
only the illustration of a possibility. The king, with 
crown and sceptre, is often only the effigy of a king, 
— is not him3elf kingly. And how often is intel- 
lectual power nothing more than intellectual facil- 
ity ! — not the intrinsic force or developing life, 
of a nature devoted to truth, but merely the glit- 
ter of accomplishments, or an ostentatious parade of 
facts. There are men who show off their mental 
ability as the bully does his muscle, and use their 
acquisitions as the savage uses his tinsel and his war- 
paint. Now, power is comparatively worthless, ex- 
cept as consecrated to the highest ends, and held in 
the sense of accountableness to God. But, when 
held in this way, any kind of power becomes honor- 



SAMSON. 



195 



able because the man himself is strong. It is a 
wretched condition when a man is so fond of his 
money that he has himself, as it were, become trans- 
muted into money. So one may hold his store of 
facts as a miser holds his gold, for no end beyond 
themselves, merely as an accumulation. But when 
science as the handmaid of faith and love conducts 
Christian philanthropy and moral heroism into wider 
realms of achievement, and lends them larger means, 
then it is indeed a power, — but power by virtue of 
its consecration to the highest ends. 

And, with this consecration of such ability as he 
has, any one is strong, — strong as Samson. A man 
who has made up his mind to trust in God, and 
maintain his own convictions of right, let what may 
come, goes through the world invincible. He rends 
lions, he slays Philistines; he bursts Gaza-gates, and 
carries them away. 

This was the essential strength of Samson, and it is 
the especial relation which his personal history bears 
to each of us. His real power was in his alliance 
with God through consecrated faithfulness. The 
physical force was the symbol or indication of that 
alliance. But intrinsic power, unconquerable power, 
— whether the external gifts be few or many, brilliant 
or common, — is in every hand of duty, and in every 
heart of earnest faith. So much, then, for Samson's ■ 
strength in its relation to all power in ourselves or in 
others. 



196 



SAMSON. 



2. But, in the next place, let us consider the les- 
son of Samson's infirmity. It is the lesson of broken 
allegiance, of mean compliance, — the lesson that so 
often moves us to exclaim, " Alas for the weakness 
of strong men, and the littleness of great men ! " 
— the hero conquered not by outward foes, but by 
his own passions, — most abjectly conquered ; not 
when he was bound and led to prison, nor when he 
reeled in blindness for the mockery of the Philis- 
tines, but when he forfeited his pledge for blandish- 
ments, and laid his head in Delilah's lap. In all the 
history of Samson there is nothing more pathetic 
and suggestive than the simple assertion, " He wist 
not that the Lord was departed from him." That is 
the fact of unconscious degradation, of a priceless 
possession thoughtlessly cast away ; a spectacle how 
often repeated, a story how often told, in the career 
of gifted and mighty men ! How sad a chapter in a 
thousand biographies ! How terrible a summing-up 
of " the infirmities of genius;" of great philosophers 
inveigled by the sophistry of temptation; great poets 
drowning their laurels in the wine-cup, and swamp- 
ing the angel in the brute ; heroes taken captive by 
passion, and doing menial service to appetite ; states- 
men grinding in the mill of party, with their eyes put 
out, staggering from pillar to post, and making a 
show for the mockery of the world! A sad spec- 
tacle in the case of the invincible Hercules of 
Israel ; a sad spectacle in ten thousand conspicuous 



SAMSON. 



197 



instances ; nay, but a sad spectacle in the case of 
any man who yields to his infirmity, and in the 
thrall of appetite and sin surrenders the God-dele- 
gated power, that is in him; unconscious of his 
degradation perhaps, until in some shape aroused by 
the startling fact, "the Philistines be upon you ! " 

3. Let me call your attention to one more point. 
Concerning Samson, it has been said that " his life 
began in marvel, and ended in the deepest tragedy." 
But, my brethren, is it not so with every human 
life ? Does it not begin in marvel ? Is not sim- 
ple being itself a marvellous fact, a wondrous gift ? 
And for what end? Surely for no mean use. 
It is bestowed that in some way each may do 
God's work in life ; and in his place, and with 
his possibilities of action, every man is a provi- 
dential man. And yet how many hold their endow- 
ments in subservience to their infirmities ! — that 
young man, for instance, shorn of promise, of prin- 
ciple, nay, even of decency ; bearing himself perhaps 
so loftily, but living so meanly ; so boastful in his 
assumptions, but so contemptible in his conduct; the 
fragment of a burnt-out soul, a staggering nuisance, 
an organ of blasphemy, an instrument that might 
have been of blessing and of honor, now flawed and 
corrupted, not nearly so useful or effective as the 
jawbone of an ass. Every life begins in marvel, is a 
marvel : only too often it is not discerned or heeded. 

And every life ends in tragedy ; not always with 



198 



SAMSON. 



marked externals, not always with conspicuous hor- 
ror, like that of Samson. Often it is the tragedy of 
untimely death brought on by gross self-slaughter. 
We see the strong man totter and fall ; borne to his 
grave with that face so marred and desecrated, 
which as it were but yesterday smiled with promise 
in the face of that now desolate mother. There 
are tragedies unfolding the sorrow of wasted power, 
of lost confidence, and violated vows; tragedies 
of domestic life, of heart-broken women, of little 
children, whose white faces glimmer like judgment- 
scrolls before the eyes of the self-degraded husband 
and father; tragedies of discrowned intellect and 
unsceptred will, seized and bound by rebellious 
appetites ; tragedies of neglected opportunities and 
disregarded duties ; a real " soul's tragedy " reeling 
blindly out of the world, and pulling down the tem- 
ple of the body with it. 

At least, there is the tragedy with which all men 
are implicated, the final tragedy of death ; the fall of 
the curtain to a wail of mournful music, hiding in 
awful shadow the form of one who lies breathless on 
the field where he has either done well or ill. Grand 
and brilliant may that life have been, or poor and 
obscure, but now all is over. Nothing remains but 
the influence that reaches out far beyond it. In this 
condition this tragedy comes very near to us, and 
startles us with the question. " Is it not of the deep- 
est interest what this our life shall be ? " 



SAMSON. 



199 



In Samson's case there is at last an appearance 
of repentance, — a turning to the Lord. The glory 
of prayer lights up the hero's face, with his returning 
strength, and signs of God's accepting mercy beam 
upon him as he falls. It is better to anticipate the 
repentance. It is better for each of us in the con- 
duct of life, — each with his own peculiar power, — 
to work the achievement to which God calls him ; 
and, praying for the true hero's strength, pray also 
for divine help in our infirmities. 



XII. 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 

[Preached at the close of the year.] 

"Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting." — 
Psalm xciii. 2. 

THERE are two methods of religious growth, or 
quickening. One is by looking within, the other 
is by looking up. The first leads to the scrutiny of 
our own hearts ; the consideration of our sins, our 
shortcomings, and our moral wants. The second 
process impels us to turn towards the infinite, — to 
let our individual concern mingle with the illimit- 
ability of the divine being ; in one word, to find 
breathings of consolation and inspirations of duty by 
meditations upon God. 

Into such meditations I propose to lead you upon 
this last Sunday evening of the year. I take the 
words of the text as drawing us away from this 
transient time-scenery to that great reality upon 
which all things depend, and from which all things 
proceed. If the universe about us is not a mere 
whirl of blind forces, then is the declaration before 
200 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



201 



us the greatest of truths. In the movement of events 
it assures us of a supreme and steady control : .it 
assures us of permanence in the midst of change, — 
of a root of absolute being, out of which branches 
this sheaf of phenomena. In the growth and decay 
of systems, in the procession of years bearing swiftly 
onward our joys and our sorrows, tracing the brief 
furrows of our lives that end in grave-dust, " Thy 
throne is established of old : thou art from ever- 
lasting." 

The theme suggested by the text, then, is the 
eternity of God ; and the special use which I wish to 
make of this theme at the present time is, a consid- 
eration of the eternity of God as a standard of human 
measurement. I say, the theme suggested by the 
text ; for it is only in the way of suggestion that I 
propose to speak in this discourse. The words before 
us are suggestive. They strike chords of thought and 
sentiment which cannot easily find expression in 
speech, but which nevertheless fill us and lift us up. 

I. In the first place, then, I call your attention to 
the vastness and majesty of the truth declared in the 
text. There is set before us, not the conception, — 
for we cannot conceive it, — but the proclamation, 
of an eternal order and intelligence ; of being with- 
out limit, stretching far beyond the possibilities of 
our thought. And here let me observe that thus we 
find a practical purpose in those enormous computa- 
tions which characterize modern science. Apart 



202 



THE ETEK1STTY OF GOD. 



from wonder and curiosity, there appears no substan- 
tial object in ascertaining how far the sun is from 
the earth, or Sirius from the sun, or one world from 
another, or in computing the waves in that sea of 
time which has been rolling from the creation of the 
globe until now. But when we take these vast 
measurements as counters by which, though in the 
faintest degree, to approximate the idea of God's 
eternity ; when we use them as steps by which to 
rise towards that height, as lines by which we try 
to fathom something of that depth ; when we think 
of the universe in its present relations as only a 
single season in his endless years ; when we regard 
these springing worlds, these ripening firmaments, as 
the seed which he is perpetually sowing, the sheaves 
which he is perpetually gathering in ; when in these 
rocky joints and scars we trace the tide-marks of 
his ceaseless action, the footprints of his forth-going 
from eternity, — then do we find a special use in 
these computations. At least, in our attempt to 
form some conception of God, they serve to steady 
us. In their degree, they lift us to a higher point of 
contemplation. As the fine spider's web stretched 
across the telescopic lens enables us to appreciate 
the movement of the stars, so, in their turn, do these 
objects, stretched across the area of our thought, 
help us to recognize the boundlessness of the 
Almighty. 

And these are our only standards of measurement. 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



203 



They are the only instances by which we can bring 
home to ourselves the great truth proclaimed in the 
text. When we say, " His throne is established of 
old, he is from everlasting," to aid us in apprehend- 
ing this truth, we can only say, " He is before all 
worlds and all ages." All their periods are but 
transient phenomena sailing across the disk of his 
enduring being. Tax your thought with the reck- 
oning of those ages through which the globe has 
been ripening to the present hour ; yet before all 
these you find him as he was, is now, and ever 
shall be. Think of the long processes by which 
worlds have been formed, and systems brought into 
their present relations ; yet his being includes and 
immeasurably outruns them all. 

How inexpressibly grand, then, is even the state- 
ment of this truth, the very thought of this eternity ! 
All things else have their times and seasons; no 
more the wild flower that opens its leaves for a day, 
or the insect that spins a glittering lifetime in an 
hour, than the sea that we call " everlasting," or the 
systems of the sky. The whole creation changes, 
moves out of its place, ebbs and flows, and in one 
form is the counterpart of another. The decree of 
perishableness is upon London and New York as 
upon bud and calyx. The pyramid is no more eter- 
nal than the ant-hill. The atoms that make up the 
mountain are crumbling like the clods by the way- 
side, or like the frame of man. Our own lives are 



204 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



built out of perished existences. Our enjoyments 
are legacies. Our hopes blossom out of decay. 
The earth is an enormous catacomb, with epitaphs 
engraved by the sea and by fire. Every atom of 
soil has been vital. Every withered fibre may have 
been a pulse of sensation, or a conduit of blood. 
Such is the law of all visible things, — perpetual 
transmutation, from gas to granite, from the atom 
in the structure of the zoophyte to the atom in the 
brain of Xewton. Xotice, too, the way-marks of our 
own experience ; the surprise with which we find 
ourselves old while we yet feel young, and trace 
gray hairs in the furrows of our passion and our 
hope; the laugh of youthful glee breaking into a 
querulous cackle ; the boat in which we have sailed 
along the green and tempting shores suddenly spin- 
ning down the Grand Rapids, and the mists and 
thunder of Niagara not far. 

Surely, then, in this constant mutation, it is not 
only a sublime, it is also a refreshing thought, that 
there is One who is eternal : that this wheel of transi- 
tion spins on that immutable axle ; and that, amidst 
these shifting possessions and waning hopes, we can 
look up and say, " Thy throne is established of old ; 
thou art from everlasting." 

II. Let us, in the next place, regard the truth set 
forth in the text as a necessity of reason. The words 
of the Psalmist here are not a mere metaphor : they 
proclaim a reality. Xot only do they strike the 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



2C5 



chords of devout sentiment ; they answer to the de- 
mands of reason : for it is an intellectual necessity, 
that, beneath all these changing phenomena, there 
should be a ground of fixed substance. This orderly 
movement of the universe must have proceeded from 
design, which implies pre-existent mind. Indeed, 
the human mind itself, which thus conceives an eter- 
nal Mind, testifies to the existence of such a Mind. 
Of course it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine 
any actual beginning of the material world : it is 
difficult to imagine any thing else than that the ele- 
ments of the things which we -see should always have 
been. But surely it is no less difficult to conceive 
the beginning of intelligence, — of a mind that plans, 
creates, and controls. 

Moreover, the sphere of physical existence is by 
no means limited to our human experience. Here 
are these immense forms, these varieties of the mate- 
rial world, rising from grade to grade, stretching 
away beyond the compass of our vision, and even of 
. our thought, — enduring for countless ages. I ask, 
then, can we suppose that this much more wonder- 
ful reality of mind is in its manifestation limited to 
man, and shut up within the cincture of the human 
brain ? As well may we suppose that all the physi- 
cal energy of the universe is included in the blade 
of corn that develops through its brief season, or in 
the flower that opens and falls between the rising 
and the setting sun. This fine intelligence, this pro- 



206 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



ductive thought, that kindles in a Galileo and 
flames in a Shakspeare, — is it a transient element? 
Is it merely a phenomenon ? or does it represent a sub- 
stantial Life, a reservoir of Intelligence, out of which 
all phenomena spring ? Even in its humblest mani- 
festation, is there not enough in this mysterious faculty 
to convince us that man is not its sole possessor, and 
to lead us to the assurance of an Eternal Mind ? 

I look upon the wondrous operations of the human 
intellect, — that secret depth out of which issue 
forces that move the world ; institutions, laws, 
achievements, all that appears in human history ; all 
that impels humanity forward in the march of civili- 
zation; I enter, as it were, the secret chambers of 
the poet's vision and the philosopher's thought ; I 
trace that mysterious star-fire, that burr of quench- 
less light whirling nebulously in the rudest brain, 
dimly struggling through the darkness of the most 
degraded soul ; I study that marvellous process, the 
unfolding of a child's thought, every day evolving 
some new r trait, creeping timidly along the surface of - 
knowledge, the outer edge of facts, until its tendrils 
hold firmly by the universe, and it swings into the 
wide realm of truth, — and I feel that this elemental 
power, this exhaustless mind, must have a kindred 
origin, and that its perpetual inspiration flows from 
an enduring source. 

Two points may be considered here. First, that 
mind, rather than matter, is the primal fact. I mean 



THE ETEEXITY OF GOD. 



207 



by this that it is the fact which stands nearest us. 
It is the first thing of which we are conscious ; for 
it is consciousness itself. I am sure that I think, 
although I may not be sure of that about which I 
think. This inward realm of thoughts and feelings 
is to me more certain than this outward world which 
confessedly is colored and shaped by the operations 
of the mind ; which exists for us as it appears, 
rather than as it is. And, if this fact thus stands 
primary in our own experience, we may infer that it 
thus stands throughout the universe. Eternal mind 

o 

is a more conceivable and intimate fact than eternal 
matter. 

In the next place, I observe that the world with- 
out corresponds to mind, is analogous to mind, ap- 
peals to mind, is only truly apprehended by mind. 
As the written characters in a letter are charged 
with the meaning of one mind, and convey that mean- 
ing to another mind; so as to the characters with 
which the entire world of nature is inscribed. They 
express mind, and in that expression are appre- 
hended by mind. The material universe is a series 
of propositions rendered in facts instead of words. 
If it were otherwise, it is hardly conceivable why 
the universe should not be to us the same that it is 
to the ox or the sparrow, — only a field of locomo- 
tion and of sensuous life. Why should nature inspire 
us to think, if thought is not enshrined in it ? How 
could it so readily lead and educate a power which it 



208 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



lias not in itself? Look closely at this point. What 
are the highest meanings, the highest uses, of the 
material world ? Are they fitted only to an animal 
perception, — an economy of life and death ? Is the 
earth nothing more than a human cattle-pasture, and 
heaven a canopy of torch-lights ? Is nature a dead 
screen, on which human fancy paints the enigmas 
that it thinks it finds there, and projects the very 
problems that it explores? Or behind that screen 
is there a Mind, whose splendid processes, whose 
shadowy mysteries, the human mind detects, and 
tries to follow out, although it may never fully com- 
prehend them ? Again I ask, What is the aspect 
of the material world ? Does it appear only as mat- 
ter adjusted to matter ? or in and through it does 
thought appeal to thought ? — deep calling unto 
deep. 

In this expression of Mind, then, throughout all 
forms of being, I find the significance of the text. 
It is more conceivable that the substantial Root of 
these transient phenomena should be intelligent than 
that it should be non-intelligent. Our thoughts, per- 
plexed at the best, are compelled to lodge some- 
where ; and they lodge far more satisfactorily upon 
the proposition of eternal mind than upon the propo- 
sition of eternal matter. 

It appears to me, then, that the truth proclaimed 
in the text is a necessity of reason ; that truth is 
necessary as the foundation of all that appears, — as 



THE ETEKNITY OF GOD. 



209 



the central harmony of all this order, especially as 
the origin of this faculty of mind in ourselves. 
Therefore by no means should we regard the decla- 
ration of the Psalmist as a mere figure of speech. 
It is a solid fact which is here proclaimed, — the most 
veritable of facts. Not only from the harp-strings of 
this Hebrew singer, swept by the fingers of devout 
emotion, but from the formulas of demonstration, 
from the lips of the merely speculative thinker, 
breaks this confession : " Thy throne is established 
of old ; thou are from everlasting." 

III. But we cannot stop with the consideration of 
the text as a mere intellectual proposition. After all, 
it is eminently a religious truth. Yet it can be a 
religious truth for us only as it moves us with a con- 
sciousness of personal relations with Him whose 
" throne is established of old, and who is from ever- 
lasting." For religion is distinguished from philoso- 
phy in this : it translates the logical statement into a 
spiritual sentiment. It exhibits this truth of the 
eternity of God not only as a majestic theme, not 
only as a necessary fact, but as a moral or spiritual 
influence for our souls. And this brings me to that 
special application of the subject which I wish to 
make at the present time. I say, then, that this 
truth of God's eternity, vast as it is, and transcend- 
ing all finite thought, is, in some sense, a standard 
for human measurement. 

1. I observe then, in the first place, that the truth 



210 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



declared in the text presents a standard of human 
littleness. Here stretches before us the limitless 
horizon on which the drama of human life stands out 
in full relief. Across this disk of absolute being 
glide all our plans, our pursuits, and the lines of our 
mortal years. And, compared with this, what are 
they all? That which we call " a long life," — what 
is it as it thus flits into nothingness ? What are our 
schemes in which we plunge our hearts and our 
hopes ? What are our achievements, our monuments 
of brass or granite, when all the ages of the world 
upon this fathomless deep are but a ripple, a scud 
of foam ? For those lessons of humility and frailty 
and transitoriness which in our thoughtlessness and 
our pride we so often need, surely nothing can be so 
effective as meditation upon the familiar yet unreal- 
ized truth here set before us. The moralist or 
preacher may write his homily in the dust of thickly- 
strewn graves, or transcribe it from recent tomb- 
stones. But we need not only a sense of mutability, 
but a point of contrast. We need to realize, not only 
that life is short, but how short ; and for this nothing 
can be more impressive than the simple and sublime 
statement of the Psalmist. Nothing is so convin- 
cing as to turn our telescope towards this firmament 
of eternal Being, and see how rapidly each mortal 
sphere trembles and slips across the meridian wire. 
Surely this is a standard of transitoriness that in- 
spires us with sudden awe, and shakes us out of our 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



211 



proud assumptions and our carnal ease ; while in 
this awakened sense of our human littleness we are 
constrained to cry out, even as we vanish away, 
" Thy throne is established of old ; thou art from 
everlasting." 

2. I remark, again, that the eternity of God is 
also a standard for human hope and confidence. For, 
fleeting as is the measure of our days, to this immu- 
table Being we are bound by imperishable relations. 
I have spoken of mind, and have inferred from it the 
existence of a Supreme and Eternal Mind. But now 
I ask, What must be the nature of this element, that 
is thus able to conceive that there is such a fact as 
an Eternal Mind ? Of all things else in this visible 
universe, here is one being, who, amidst the perishing 
of his possessions, the vanishing of his hopes, and his 
own swift passage through this mortal state, is able 
to look up with an instinct of the Infinite, and cry 
out, " Thy throne is established of old ; thou art 
from everlasting." And I argue that such a being, 
weak and transitory as he is, must hold special rela- 
tions to that Supreme Mind. It appears to me that 
in this fact alone there is ground for hope and con- 
fidence in humanity. There would be ground for 
such hope and confidence if only this utterance, 
this Bible-scrap, had been thrown out from the mind 
and the heart of man in his passage through time ; 
if only by this narrow strip of writing it had been 
made evident that man, in all his limitations and 



212 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



sins, had looked up from this earth on "which his feet 
were placed, and uttered the conception expressed in 
the text. Surely a nature, however perishable its 
environments, that can conceive such a truth, must 
have special alliance with that truth ; is, in some 
sense, a participant in it. 

And it is so. The eternity of God assures our 
own imperishableness. Of all created things here 
below, changing and passing away, we in our essen- 
tial peculiarity abide. Among all these forms of 
nature, us, atoms of mortality, God gathers up, and 
never loses. " He is not a God of the dead, but of 
the living." All the generations that have been 
swept from the earth are before him, held in reser- 
vation, — held in perpetual life. Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, gone we cannot tell whither, dwelling we 
know not where, — he sees them all. The long file 
of heroes and martj'rs, good men and true men, and 
patient sufferers, and humble toilers, and husbands 
and wives; dear relationships of every kind; souls 
eloquent with genius and strong with virtue, long 
since hidden from our sight; gray granclsires left 
out until frost, and sweet babes that have bowed 
to the sickle like violets in June, and have been 
mixed in with shocks of corn fully ripe, — all these 
have been gathered into the relentless garner. Nay, 
the poor castaways, the unregarded dwellers in 
nooks and dark places of the earth, — crusted and 
battered coins, yet with the divine image and super- 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



213 



scription not utterly effaced from them, — every atom 
of a soul, every fibre of the general humanity, he has 
gathered up, he will keep. Living once, they live 
forever. Because he lives, they shall live also. A 
child once born to us is our child forever. The love 
born with it will never die. Death may early dash 
its cold wave on the little face. But here it hangs 
in the gallery of the soul. We keep a place for it, 
and know that it is no vain image, but the reflection 
of what really exists in heaven. Xay, not even 
moral death can cancel a child's claim upon us. 
Debasement and guilt cannot cover it up so that it 
will not be our child. Xo sentence of excommunica- 
tion can write its final epitaph, or set up a grave- 
stone for it in our hearts. Brethren, am I not 
permitted to argue from the less to the greater ? I 
must conceive the Eternal God as so loving and car- 
ing for all his children. Once created, they are 
forever his. His love, flowing out to them, never 
ceases ; and so he will not let them drop into 
annihilation, but takes them up, and holds them 
secure in his own eternity. Truly, then, when we 
say. " Thy throne is established of old. thou art 
from everlasting," we proclaim a great truth for 
human hope and consolation. 

With this great light of God's eternity shining 
around us as we move along, and with the thought 
that in the bosom of that eternity he gathers up all 
losses, all waifs, and keeps safely the departed who 



214 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



have floated out of our sight, there is also reason 
for patience. 

Yes, withal, let us be patient, " God is patient 
because he is eternal ; " and we may learn to be 
patient in proportion as we realize our share in that 
eternity, — patient with this swift-flying time, that 
will not let us rest, but hurries us through the pre- 
cious years ; patient with this transient suffering and 
loss ; patient with any special affliction, considering 
that it is only a part of a transcendent scheme. For 
there is scope for human hope and confidence in that 
truth, — " Thy throne is established of old ; thou art 
from everlasting." 

3. The text presents a standard of personal re- 
sponsibility. Among all the interests of life, among 
all that claims our love or tempts our desire, this 
throne that is established of old demands our 
supreme homage. The criterion of all our conduct 
is the will of Him who is from everlasting. Our 
temptations largely spring from customs and expedi- 
ents. Human policies easily entangle us. The at- 
traction of profit or of reputation draws us from the 
true orbit of our lives. We are impelled to smother 
our convictions ; forgetting that allegiance to truth 
is allegiance to God, and disloyalty to the one is 
disloyalty to the other. Let us beware, then, how 
we bring our allegiance to the shambles, or put a 
trade-mark upon conscience. Above all, in the light 
of the great truth which we have been considering, 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



215 



let us always feel how close in our naked personality 
we stand to Him who is thus from everlasting. And, 
in this relation, what is the report of the closing 
year ? To Him we owe praise and honor. Have we 
rendered praise and honor ? We are called to fulfil 
his purpose in our lives, and how have we lived? 
He has not dwelt apart from us, making his demands 
as an absolute Sovereign. He has drawn near to us 
as an eternal Father. He has broken through the 
veil of our earthly life ; and given us tokens of his 
love and his solicitude in J esus Christ. How have we 
treated these tokens ? and with what posture of our 
hearts do we answer back ? These are questions for 
the present hour, and for all the hours of our lives. 
Our highest blessedness, our supreme end, is in recon- 
ciliation with Him whose " throne is established of old, 
who is from everlasting." All that we are required to 
bear, all that we are called to do, expresses the will of 
Eternal Goodness. Here, standing on the vanishing 
edge of the year, — amidst the sins and sorrows of 
the past, amidst the uncertainties of the future, — 
there is guidance for our footsteps, and there is inspi- 
ration for our work. 



PUBLISHED BY JAMES MILLER, NEW YORK. 



VALUABLE AXD INTERESTING WORKS OF HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY 
TRAVELS, FICTION, ETC., ETC. 

Zenobia ; or, The Fall of Palmyra. In Letters of L. aianltus 
Piso, from Palmyra, to his Friend Marcus Curtius at Rome. By William 
Ware. 12mo, cloth. Price $2 00 

Aurelian ; or, Rome in the Third Century. In Letters of 
Lucius M. Piso, from Rome, to Fausta. the Daughter of Gracchus, at 
Palmyra. A sequel to " Zenobia." By William Ware. 12mo. clorh. 
Price ....... $2 00 

Julian ; or, Scenes in Judea. By William Ware. 12mo, cloth. 

Price $2 00 

"Ancient Classics from the pen of a modern -writer. They are fine specimens of that 

form of .Moral Romance, of which the samples are few — and are most brilliant additions 

to American Literature." — N. A. Review. 

Friends in Council ; A Series of Readings and Discourse 
Thereon. By Arthur Helps. Complete in two volumes, 12mo, cloth. 
Price $4 00 

" It is good, in Discourse, and Speech of Conversation, to vary, and intermingle Speech 
of the present Occasion with Arguments; Tales with Reasons, Asking of Questions, with 
Te.ling of Opinions; and Jest with Earnest: For it is a dull Thing to Tire, and as we say 
now, to Jade, anything too far." — Bacon, Essay of Discourse. 

Sartor Resartus : The Life and Opinions of Herb Teefels- 
drockh, By Thoxas Carlylb. 12mo, cloth. Price 75 cts. 

Our New Home In the West : or, Glimpses of Life Among the 
Early Settlers. Illustrated by F. 0. C. Dakley. By Mrs. C. M. Kirklaxd. 
l2mo, cloth. Price $1 50 

Holidays Abroad ; or, Europe from the West. By Mrs. C. M. 
Kirklaxd. 12mo, cloth. Price - $2 00 

Lavinia ; or, One Year of Wedlock. Translated from the Swed- 
ish of Emtlle F. Carlen. 12mo, cloth. Price $1 25 

Undine and Sintram. Translated from the German of Baron 
Fouque. 12mo, cloth. Price $1 25 

Thiodolph, the Icelander. Translated from the German of 
Baron Fouque. 12mo, cloth. Price $1 25 

Artist's Married Life. Being that of Albert Durer. Trans- 
lated from the German of Leopold Schefer, by Mrs. J. R. Stodart. He- 
vised edition, with a Memoir. 12mo, cloth. Price $125 

Galaxy of Wit and Wisdom ; or, Fun for the Million A Choice 
Collection of the Humorous Savings of Tom Hood, Douglas Jerrold, Sher- 
idan, Coleman and others. Illustrated. 16mo, cloth. Price $1 2o 

Vathek. An Arabian Tale. By William Beckford. With 
Notes, Critical and Explanatory. 12mo, cloth. Price $125 

The Romance of a Poor Young Man, Translated from the 
French of Octave Fenillet 12mo, cloth. Price $1 50 



Published by JAMES MILLER, 647 Broadway, 



Paley's Evidences of Christianity : 

With Annotations by Richard Whately, 
D. D., Archbishop of Dublin. 1 volume, 
octavo, cloth, $2.50 

Friends in Council : 

A Series of Readings and Discourse Thereon. 
By Arthur Helps. 2 volumes, 12mo, 
cloth, $4.00 

The Artist's Married Life ; 

Being that of Albert Durer. Translated from 
the German of Leopold Schefer by Mrs. J. R. 
Stoddart. Revised edition, with a Memoir 
and Portrait 12mo, cloth, - $1.25 

Lays of Ancient Rome, 

And other Poems. By Thomas Barbing ton 
Macaulay. 12mo, - $1.25 

Sartor Resartus. 

By Thomas Carlyle. 12mo, - - $1.00 

Undine and Sintram. 

Translated from the German of Fouque. A 



new edition. 1 vol., 12mo, - - - $1.25 
Do. do. Illustrated, - - - - 1.75 

Theodolph, the Icelander. 

Translated from the German of Fouque. 

12mo, $1.50 



Guide to Health and Long Life ; 

Or, What to Eat, Drink and Avoid, etc., - $1.00 



James Miller's Juvenile Books. 



MAYNE REID'S TALES OF ADVENTURE {Continued). 

^econt) »erteg. 

FOREIGN ADVENTURES. 
The Bush-Boys j or, The History and Adventures of a Cape 

Farmer and his Family in the Wild Karoos of Southern Africa. With 12 
Illustrations. 

The Young Yagers; A Sequel to the Bush-Boys. With 12 

Illustrations. 

The Boy Tar; or, A Voyage in the Dark. With 12 Illus- 
trations. 

The Plant-Hunters ; or, Adventures among the Himalaya 

Mountains. With 12 Illustrations. 

The Cliff-Climbers ; or, The Lone Home in the Himalayas. 

A Sequel to " The Plant- Hunters." With 8 Illustrations. 

Ran Away to Sea: An Autobiography for Boys. With 6 

Illustrations. 

fcj^* The above Six Volumes are bound uniform in fancy cloth, beautifully 
stamped, and enclosed in a neat box. Price of the set, $9.00. 



Each in one volume, i2tno, elegantly illustrated. Price, $1.75. 

The Ocean Waifs. A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea. 

With 8 Illustrations. 

The Boy Slaves; or, Life in the Desert. With S Illustrations. 
Afloat hi the Forest ; or, A Voyage among the Tree-Tops 

With 15 Illustrations. 

The Giraffe- Hunters. With 8 Illustrations. 

This Series, uniformly bound, in a neat box, price <7-oo. 
4, 



THE 



HOPES OP THE HUMAN RACE, 



HEBEAFTEB AND HEBE. 



BY 

FRANCES POWER COBBE. 



NEW YORK : 

JAMES MILLER, PUBLISHER, 

647 Broadway. 
1876 



(,85 82 % 




N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 



